Help me. I think I'm starting to want children.

First I had this sudden, light bulb moment where I thought "Unless Chris and Sue give in, they are so staying on the East Coast." Which produced the thought "If I move back to Portland and eventually get a house, I'll probably stay on the West(best) coast."

Which equaled "MY KIDS AND CHRIS' KIDS WILL HARDLY KNOW EACH OTHER!"

So much for my mental image of our kids running wild at each other's houses, raucously raiding the other's fridge for the differences. So much for the thought that whenever I go insane dealing with a teenager I can send them to their cool uncle's, or that our kids would be constantly in touch with their cousins. This has not been a happy realization.

As my Google-ho-friend would say, "what are you going to do about it?" And how does this lead to wanting children?

Well, I've been thinking about the East coast a lot. It helps that J still really likes New Hampshire, and that Portsmouth is an hour away from Boston. I really, really liked Alexandria, D.C. Add to this random chain of thought a DC blogger w/ child that I found through one of the food blogs that I read, and I became hooked on reading what it was like to be a mother. And then, because I'm OCD, I went back through the archives and followed the entire story, since at some point she had to have the "WANT BABY" moment. Which goes back to my basic question about everything: "WHEN DO YOU KNOW???"

I've never gotten an answer, but over the course of finding her blog, reading it, and finally getting through it all, I started finding the pictures of her kid cute. Really, really cute. Now what, in the world, am I going to do about that???

I was having an interesting discussion w/ a guy at work who is probably going to be my next roommate when I move into the city. Bad financial decision, I know, but when am I ever going to be able to live in a city like SF again? Anyways, this guy says "Well, I just act like that around him. I'm a chameleon."

Are we all chameleons? I know certain parts of me come out around different people, and that the people I like the most are the ones that I can relax and "be myself" with. But that makes me wonder if I really am "myself" most of the time - since most of my day isn't spent relaxed because of work/errands/strangers. It was certainly an interesting moment when J and I first started dating where he said "I'm kind of a chameleon" and I said "Holy shit! Me too!" It was a fun little dance trying to define our relationship, because we kept changing and adapting to each other. Which happens w/ friendships too: when Anna wrote about dancing, it got me started looking up Alvin Ailey and trying to get tickets to a show. When I'm with work people, I talk games and consoles. And when I'm with Ali, we only talk about food and dogs.

Eventually I think this adaptability goes away. I definitely used to feel like I could talk to anyone and get along with them. I haven't been stretching that capability, so I'm sure it's shrinking, but I feel less inclined to talk to people I'm not interested in, meaning less extended effort to get to know others outside my ken. I don't like it, but I don't know how else to keep from being overwhelmed by the sheer mass of humanity. There's only so many things you can pursue, whether inside or outside of yourself.

It's interesting, this process of finding out what makes you happy. Interesting because I always assumed that you just knew, instead of gathering, processing, and deciding one way or the other whether it's worth your time. It'll be interesting to see three chameleons together in one room. Which color will they end up? Most likely: three slugs watching a tv. But hopefully not.

ARGH! I just realized that SXSW, the music part of which I've been telling Wahby I'm going to go to for TWO YEARS, is scheduled the week before I leave for Paris. This year, I'd been thinking the stars were aligned for me to hit it up in Austin: Ariel moving down there, Southwest Airlines giving me a free ticket, remembering to look at the website in 2006...ooops. Forgot about that one.

Boooo. Yet another year that I will have missed it. Now I have to go visit Austin and...do what??? Eat lots of wings? I can do that in Portland.

And you thought you knew what wasabi was...

I think it's interesting that even when I was in Japan, I never got a chance to sample the real thing. There's only two growers in Japan, and one in the US, or something crazy scarce like that. End result: what we consider wasabi is food coloring + horseradish. And mixing it in your soy sauce first? Totally not cool, Wahby. But we've had that argument before.

The question is: is it worth making a reservation at SF's most famous sushi place, the one that I've been thinking about for a full year, to experience real wasabi the way it should be eaten?

Or should I just mail order some grown in Oregon!

***1/29 edit***
Justin took me to Kiss Seafood for our 2 year anni dinner and...the fresh wasabi was good. Almost nutty in it's heat, tasted like grated vegetable more, but on the whole...I'd say the fake stuff actually does a decent imitation! The fish however, was amazing. Best sushi/sashimi I've ever had, even better than when I was in Japan. Of course, I didn't have much money when I was in Japan, so it's probably not a fair comparison.

J's spring break is March 17-24th, so I'm taking a week off and making the hop across the pond.

I'm going to need suggestions on what to do. I've got a huge list of places to try and eat at though :)

2 days in the Louvre. 1 Seine River Cruise. A whole heck of a lot of brie and bread. French hot chocolate. Jamon Iberico to track down. The list continues!

It ranks as one of the most traumatic cooking experiences ever.

Imagine this: I'm on my daily (hah!) run, and I see a bleached snail shell in the middle of the gravel path. I think to myself "I should stop and pick that up for Justin!" I grab it, try to shake out most of the rocks in it, stick it in my hat, and finish my run. (Ok, it was more of a walk. there are no excuses for being sadly out of shape.)

Back at the apartment, I rinse it off and stick it in the sink to soak as I shower. Once out of the shower, however, I look in the sink and see a snail and two antennae waving at me, and jump in fright. Then I think "oh crap!" Here's the predicament: if I put it back outside, it eats all my plants, and I want it's cool shell. On the other hand, I don't quite think I've killed anything non-insecty before, but I'm not willing to wait until it dies of natural causes.

Enter "Escargots from your Garden to the Table". Boiling a snail doesn't seem like that cruel of a thing to do, right? Once again, hah!

As I ready the chamber of death, I think "If I'm willing to eat snails, I should be willing to cook snails." And then I hesitantly pick up the live, raw, and wriggling snail, and I drop it in the pot like it's going to bite me. And wait. As it's floating around in the bubbling water, I wonder "is it dead yet???" So I wait more. Then I think "If it's not dead, and I try to pull it out of the shell, I'm going to be sooo freaked out if it starts moving. Maybe I should wait more." Exactly 5 minutes later, I think "well, here goes!"

My first attempt to pull it out of the shell with a dining fork doesn't work so well. It tears off part of the foot, and I can see that there's more meat in there that will rot if I stop. So I grab my tweezers, think "J, I must really, really love you. I sure hope this thing is dead", and go at it. Luckily, I manage to find the right angle, and as I'm grabbing and tugging and trying to gently maneuver it out of the shell (gently because I'm still not convinced it's dead), all of a sudden SCHLOOOOMP! The whole thing comes out in one moist package and as it comes out I can see scenes from Aliens flashing at me and I think I'm going to die because this snail thing is not stopping and there's no way that there can be so much snail in this tiny shell and oh my god it's going to be sooo pissed at me drop it drop it drop it!

A few minutes later, after my heartbeat has gone back to normal and I feel a little less scared silly, I poke at it to make sure it's not going to start moving, and then I examine the anatomy of a snail. It looks remarkably similar to a slug once out of it's shell, though the tip end of the gall retains the cool spiral of the shell, which reassures me that I have, indeed, killed it and pulled all of it out of there. I then boil the shell w/ some baking soda and wash it w/ some soap, and leave it to dry while I dispose of my poor science project's remains in 3 layers of paper towels and a sealed ziploc biohazard bag. Escargots are delicious, but I will let the French do what they do best, and stick to the things I don't have to kill.

And this, my friends, is why I don't eat much meat these days.

When it rains, it pours...at least for blogging.

Do you remember when we were in middle school/high school/college and you thought "If I had a boyfriend/best friend/dog/parent/*insert what you wanted here*, then I'd be happy"? For me, the boyfriend usually was first on the list, followed by the dog.

I feel like I'm getting wiser because I can now isolate the individual wants versus the statement "I would be happy if things in my life were aligned". I no longer need a boyfriend. (I still desperately want a dog - to the point that I'm going to get an old fart of a cat after xmas because that's the closest cats ever get to the perfect state of dog-dom.) I still get intensely overwhelmed by life sometimes - the jobbie-job, making money yet somehow not making money, why I can't be one of those ultra-cool food bloggers, relationship queries, why is everyone else but me getting married/buying houses/getting pets, etc. And yet I feel pretty happy. Today and yesterday, at least. That's as far as my memory goes, so I'm happy like a goldfish!

I'm getting distracted from the point. I have been thinking a lot lately about the difference between believing that something else controls your happiness vs. believing that you control it. I don't know how much deeper and new-agey I can get. Must be the yoga. I think the expectations we set for ourselves, others, and society exert too much influence on our self-worth. In the end, for me, my day-to-day happiness sometimes boils down to the number of people I've had a positive interaction with, and the quality of that interaction. It's not about whether I'm good enough, whether my friends are like the ones on TV, or that #$%@ing driver who cut me off. It's about making my yoga instructor and for goodness sakes the ENTIRE class smile because I'm about to fall over and am windmilling my arms frantically yet silently like Wile E. Coyote. Ok, well sometimes it's more about the other drivers out there. But I try to use that whole 'third eye' thing to counter it.

And now for some not-me content:
Wow.

That I LOVE my job!

I was going to leave that above statement like a decorative declaration to draw desperatly dozing dazes, but two clicks into catching up with other blogs and I'm drawn to post on mine, not punctuate.

I've been going crazy at work, thinking that the expectations were way too high, when I took a sanity check and asked. And they aren't. It's just the pressure I've been putting on myself, and the expectations that everything I do is going to come as naturally to me as hitting a softball or algebra. Foolish girl.

Once I realized that, I took a big breath of fresh air and realized that I'm pretty happy here. Jill laughed that everytime someone asks me how I like CA, all I can say is "the food is AMAZING!" (But it's true. I made osso buco w/ quinces and red potatoes Sunday, and despite the lack of a proper roasting pan (oooh there's a pretty copper one on sale...) and having to finish an hour after the eating cut-off for my fasting blood-sugar/cholesterol test the next day, it turned out decent. A bit tough, but I'm going to try baking it for a few more hours and seeing if it softens up. It'll be an interesting experiment in braising - can you fix something days after the fact? We shall see.) Aside aside, you should have seen these quinces. They smelled like heaven, and were huge. And the markets here, and the wineries, and the sun...I played soccer twice on Sunday, and it was in 70 degree weather. It's hard to argue with that. Flying up to Portland Monday morning, I realized how much I've taken weather for granted since moving to CA. Which is a nice way of saying that the torrential downpour that I stepped into made me suspect that I'm "turning Californian". Shudder. Please, don't let me lose my love of Oregon.

However, as much as I love living here right now, lately I've been really missing my parents. My dad is having a lot of knee pain, and it's worrying on a lot of levels. Both my parents have never had that many friends or outside interests, so I know they're a bit lonely now that both Chris and I are gone. And to see my dad in pain, yet still working his ass off...its upsetting.

I'm almost tempted to move back home. But I won't give up the freedom of having my own place, and I know it wouldn't change the retirement issue. And the grass is always greener - being semi-out-of-reach gives me the freedom to do my own selfish schtick, which is part of growing up and being independent, right? Heh. Chinese familial guilt at it's best. If I move back to PDX, I lose the job market here, not to mention that J's here for 2 more years. So, I guess it's up in the air still. Like EVERYTHING else. I wish I knew what to do with all these freaking variables! (Should I get a cat? I'm thinking an old, lazy one that just needs someone to love it and feed it and hug it to pieces every now and then. Though next August I'm probably going to move up to SF just to have a year in the city...)

Anyways, it was good to see the parents, even if only for two nights. I'll probably be up there next week as well - training w/ the new part of our group in OR. And that's why I'm loving the job lately - great benefits, acceptable hours and expectations, and fun people. I was looking at my two flat panels thinking "I don't know if this will last, but right now I love this!"

And I got hit on by a forty-two year old! Can't top that! I'm hot stuff! And w/ lower cholesterol than last year!

Music and Mayhem, Blood Trail Included

By ANITA GATES
Published: November 2, 2006
“Evil Dead: The Musical” wants to be the next “Rocky Horror Show,” and it just may succeed.

Some people might think that you’d need to have seen at least one of Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” movies to appreciate this show. But not necessarily. Horror comedy is, to say the least, a highly accessible genre, even for those who don’t recognize and cheer the signature lines taken from the movies.

Sure, the show is idiotic, but that’s the point.

Like the original 1983 film, so gory that it was rated NC-17, the musical is about five hormonal college students borrowing a cabin in the woods for a short vacation. They discover a 13th-century book of the dead, accidentally play an audiotape of demon-summoning words and are soon being possessed, one at a time, by evil forces.

This requires Ash (Ryan Ward, in the Bruce Campbell role) to fight back with a nearby chain saw. He even has to decapitate his girlfriend, Linda (Jennifer Byrne), with whom he has just sung the romantic duet “Housewares Employee.”

The show, which basks in the self-referential, throws in characters and events from “Evil Dead II” (1987) and dismisses the second sequel (“Army of Darkness,” 1992), which sent Ash time-traveling to the Middle Ages, with a passing remark.

The deadpan lyrics are by George Reinblatt, the playful choreography by Hinton Battle, who was co-director with Christopher Bond, and the lively music was composed by Mr. Reinblatt, Mr. Bond, Frank Cipolla and Melissa Morris.

Their most rousing number, “Do the Necronomicon,” cheerfully evokes “The Time Warp” from “Rocky Horror.” But the musical high point is Annie Knowby’s doo-wop ballad “All the Men in My Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons.” (Annie, the scientist’s-beautiful-daughter character, is played by Renée Klapmeyer.)

Truly devoted cultists may want to sit in the splatter section, the first three rows. Those seats are covered in clear plastic, and the audience may want to be too, although apparently half the fun is to wear a clean white T-shirt and spend the next two hours being sprayed with geysers of stage blood.

“Evil Dead: The Musical” is at New World Stages, 340 West 50th Street, Clinton, (212) 239-6200.

This ad campaign had me cracking up. It's not exactly work-safe, though you can pretend you're looking at "wrinkle-cream side effects".

Best ones: Chef making Bread, Plumber doing dishes, and Fireman safety-checks. But you'll want to watch them all.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need a cold shower.

And boy is it delicious. That classic combination of butter and sugar that never fails to please. I'm glad no one is here to see me licking my laptop. Pr0n indeed.

It's been a decent month. Work has picked up, so when I actually have time to read the internet I'm glad that most people are equally busy not updating their blogs: it alleviates the guilt about not keeping up w/ their lives and that of not updating mine. I'm very content right now with Justin, though we have strange disconnects when I'm stressed w/ work and him w/ school - sometimes I look at him and wonder what we really have to talk about. Our relationship is based on having fun together - we're very compatible w/ the way we like to spend our downtime, which I really enjoy. But the harder stuff like stressful life/career questions tend to throw us for a loop, which makes me feel isolated. I think the thing I miss the most about Mike was that he always offered very practical, unemotional analysis of whatever I was stressed about. (The unemotional part came in handy because I rarely actually agreed w/ him until after the fact.) But I guess this is what dating/living is - the constant cataloging and clarification of what you want.

Anyways, now that I know to schedule in some down-time for us, it's been going well. Lately I feel that I don't have much to say in conversations with people - even though I'm running around with all the activities/socializing/work/errands that keep me happy, I never feel like anything notable is actually going on. The down-time helps me remember that I don't always have to have something deep and intelligent to say, and that people are content to just brush up on my life.

Our trip to Boston was fun - we played Settlers of Catan w/ my brother and his wifey, Adam and Natalie, and Victor and Eleanor. This made up for the fact that Natalie and I totally missed each other in SF, due to a not-so-planned-from-the-guest-perspective-wedding and a 5k race in inclement weather that I'd forgotten I'd signed up for until that day, was ill-prepared for, and couldn't find the rest of my team. (SF in the summer is freakin' cold...it's so weird!) I liked Portsmouth (the Dunaway, a restaurant there, was uberuberubergood), and I loved Hanover. And I complained my way up to Franconia Ridge, and hurt for days. (Boy am I out of shape!) But I can't say I'm an East Coast girl - the only reasons I'd move to that coast are Maine, clam chowder, and my brother.

I should pay attention to my meeting. Possibly more later.

*later edit*

And facebook has now sucked out 3 hours of my soul for the dubious reason of "updating photos". I guess since I'm never going to get around to making another website to post my photos on, I might as well use facebook. Thank goodness I have no moral qualms w/ being lazy.

Friday J's parents are in town and taking us to Coco500 YAY! (Ubergood squash-blossom flatbread) I can't wait - I'm a month into my new 250$/week budget, and my tastebuds are starting to get the wandering eye. I love cooking, but my taste far outstrips my cooking ability. Similar to my problem where my spending far outpaces my earning ability. (thus, the budget). Hopefully I can get it under control before the xmas season - Chris and Sue will be in Portland for Christmas this year, and I know I'm going to want to go overboard on gifts.

Anyways, I think I've been pretty good. I go to the library for books, I don't buy new music, and I finally stopped stupidly buying DVDs. So far, now that I'm counting, the majority of my money goes to 1) random material purchases - birthday gifts, sleeping bag liners, clothes, 2)eating out/being social with J and friends, and 3)gas/groceries. So if I can crack this habit of going shopping when I don't need anything (which always ends up w/ me getting something), I think I could get it down a bit more than that. I'm already at the limit of one nice restaurant a week, but I could get rid of the not-so-nice places that I go just to be social...that one is a hard one to force though. Money! I hate having to be so concious of it, but something always ends up warming the plastic right out of my pocket.

Even now, I've got a 20A power supply on my "need" list (for the new computer) Yarrrr I'm a consumer whore!

(My only communication from Ali in months.)

You Know You're From Oregon When...

Your children learned to walk in Birkenstocks. You throw an aluminum can in the trash and feel guilty. You complain about Californians as you sell your house to one for twice as much as you originally paid. You only honk your horn if collision is imminent and never for anything else. You consider something a "hill" (not a mountain) if it doesn't have snow on it or has not recently erupted, regardless of its altitude. You consider "etiquette" a foreign word. Most of your friends are from California. You find a wallet with $500 and give it back to the owner. You used to live somewhere else but won't admit it publicly. You've ever ordered a half caff/decaf, nonfat mocha grande with sugar-free cranberry whip (or you know what it is). You know a bride & groom that registered at REI. If someone ran your car off the highway, you might drown. You'd be miffed if the store was out of your favorite brand of water. Every day is casual Friday. Hear the word "ferry" and think of boats and long waits. Know at least eight people who work for Intel or Nike, or used to work for Tektronix. You think skiing always means being covered from head to toe, in snow or water. Know that Boring is a town and not just a state of mind. Have actually used your mountain bike on a mountain. You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit under a raincoat. You return from a California vacation depressed because "all the grass was dead." Remember the date, severity, time of day, where you were, and how long you were out of power and phone service for every winter weather event in the last five years. Have ever called your insurance agent to ask if your homeowner's policy covers falling trees, flooding, or mud slides You never go camping without waterproof matches, ponchos, and mattress pads that double as flotation devices. You believe swimming is not a sport but a survival skill to prevent boating deaths. You own more than 10 articles of clothing that have the names of microbreweries/brewpubs printed on them. You think downtown is "scary" because you were panhandled there, once. You replace your hiking boots with Birkenstock or Teva sandals when the weather gets above 60 degrees. You believe people who use umbrellas are wimps or Californians, or both. You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Oregon.

I'm going to be on the East Coast for the last week of September - it's no Paris, but it's much cheaper :)

J and I will be in Boston the night of Sept. 22, leaving a week later on the 30th. Friday-Sunday we'll be at Chris 'n Sue's place. Monday-Tuesday in Portsmouth, NH to check it out as a place for J to set up dental practice. Wednesday-Thursday visiting Dartmouth for J and hiking the Whites, and then back to Boston for Friday-Saturday. Since I'm in charge of the Boston segments, I think a trip to St. Petersburg Cafe is in order, as is an eggplant sub from Cindy's and some sweet potato fries from that Bartley's. And Jill tells me I need to go to some bookstore on Newbury that has a cafe, because she's shocked I've never been there. And possibly a trip to Modern and Mike's Pastry shops.

More importantly than the food, though, will be the looking up of friends still in the area. I'm looking forward to it!

Did you know that before Silicon Valley started growing tech companies, it was a very fertile farmland?

Gotta love going home with 2-foot-long squash/zucchini/cucumbers that some overwhelmed landowner brought in.
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I've decided that my friends blog too much. There is way too much internet out there for me and my RSI to keep up with. Stop being so interesting, people!

I went to Vegas last weekend for our Pi Reunion, and it was awesome (yes, MIT kids celebrate being 3.14 years out of school). We stayed at the Paris, where they totally ham it up - faux Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumphe, French accents, boulangeries, smoking ... and amusingly enough, it really got me enthused for going to see the real Paris. I even convinced everyone to go eat at Thomas Keller's Bouchon for a real French meal. The food could have been better, admittedly, though given the rest of our meals I'm thinking it was standard for the Vegas Strip - the more you pay, the better you get...and baseline is expensive. I was happy w/ my 50$ tab, though I know Kristin wasn't too impressed...her gnocchi got a bit redundant being all gnocchi and not enough other, but I was also happy finally getting to try something that had TK's hand in it. Did you know that French Laundry (TK's well known restaurant) gets over 400 reservation calls a day, and even being able to reserve 2 months in advance still doesn't mean you'll get in b/c of the overwhelmed phone system? What a pain! In lieu of that...

I'm going to plan a trip to Paris for my 25th birthday present to myself. This has me bouncing up and down with excitement...my first time in Europe, my first trip w/o the parents, my first admission that France might actually be a worthwhile country. Baby steps, baby steps.

I think it'll be possible to do this for ~1200$/person for the flight/hotel. I'd prefer to hostel it or crash at someone's place, but don't have that many options.

Any ideas/suggestions/places to go/see/stay at? Let me know!!! Friends that won't mind two people crashing in their doorway (I hear space is tight) would also be good, as would good discount travel sites that you know about - I'm only comfortable with Travelocity but am sure there are better ones out there.

***update*** Ok, it's possible I may put this off until Spring Break, for cheaper ticket prices and better (?) weather. Still, any info is good.