an abomination

aren't dangerous things adapted, naturally, to give off warnings? poisonous fruits and animals in red, toxic substances that smell or taste bad?

last week I had a delicious french cocoa with milk that claimed to be two weeks past its date but tasted and smelled fine. today I went to open up the quart of milk that was waiting in the fridge as its replacement, and was at its pull date. smelled fine. looked fine. smelled it again. fine. poured some in a glass to test- super vile and gag-inducing.

now, doesn't milk usually smell bad first? I am frightened with the state of our food production system if one week, we can be drinking month+ old milk, and then have odorless, repulsive spoilage with barely-past dairy the next week.

where is our food coming from, and what is being done to it? does my milk even come from a cow, or a mammal for that matter? I have less and less faith in our food system, especially since moving to the east coast and further from good fresh food- I find myself more and more meatless with time, but one begins to wonder... first concern over corn and potatoes (Pollan), now milk.... oh bother.

damn toxic milk... should I be sticking to european cheese and yogurt, unsustainable as that may be? bah.

crème brulée saved me

or, how i'm too tired to form words

as of the end of the day wednesday I have 45 hours on my timesheet. I just got home a half hour ago so I can go to bed and do it all over again tomorrow. Luckily it's pretty much over and the work was good... I've been asked to help write a proposal to do interpretive and landscape design for a playground here in New York city, using a decommissioned aerial tram in the construction of the play equipment. Pretty rad.

Not rad is the fact that I had to lead a big meeting Tuesday, and have two other deadlines this week, so I'm essentially working two workweeks in one after all this last minute proposal-writing.

But I will say that when I got off the subway at Astor Place last night and saw the Dessert Truck after working 15 hours yesterday- getting up early to rent a car, driving over an hour each way, leading a community meeting on Staten Island, and then coming back to the office lugging laptop, projector, and working until midnight- I was excited to finally indulge myself and buy something from the pastry chefs who sell fabulous desserts out of a truck like one would buy a pile of noodles in a developing country.

The crème brulée I had out of a foil cup with a plastic spoon walking past scruffy homeless people on third avenue was possibly one of the best ever.

armistice

it only took three full days... I came home to empty food bowls. yay! victory is ours; we can now eat and sleep well. and hopefully be free of parasites.

on another note, I recently purchased a vacuum cleaner tailored to pet hair removal. in the week or two that I've had it, I've removed enough hair from my apartment to easily felt myself a light sweater.

amazing and gross.

one side affect of having a significantly smaller home is that you have to clean less area. one overlooked side affect is that people track in and create the same amount of dirt in a tiny home, it's just more concentrated. you can't escape the dirt in a little place. I can read the local news report... she died alone in her apartment on tenth street after remaining at home alone sick, unable to clean her apartment for a few days. cause of death... asphyxius capillus felinus.

day two

...or three, or two point five, depending upon how you look at it.

EAT THE FOOD

It's a standoff, the cats and I have going... they spent last night plaintively mewing/yowling/ passively showing their bellies and I compromised by mixing bits of untainted food in with the pill-laced stuff. As of this morning they had eaten at most one third of it.

I compromised when I found Leo eating tufts of his own hair from under the furniture, and that Teeny had eaten a string off my pajama pants. I am not sure if I can make it another evening; might have to formulate a new plan tonight if they don't give in soon.

EAT THE FOOD

My cats are the worst when it comes to reason. They yell at birds and bugs from inside the double-paned window and across the street. They are afraid of everything noisy or strange but still want to escape out the door constantly. They are just cats, with cat brains.

And yet.... they aggressively scratch the couch, but know not to try when I'm around. They respond to their names. They will just as soon as bite off your hand when it comes to taking pills (they really will, they lock their jaws shut, convinced it's poison), growling and scratching all the way. They know water comes from the faucet- she will jump into the tub and leap around, yelling loudly as though she's convinced her life depends on it until you turn it on for her to drink from.

But put a pill in food and they will starve themselves rather than have to eat the odd-tasting version. Right now they are staring at a concoction of their favorite treats plus pill lovingly dissolved within as if it were the vilest insult I could offer.

They do the seemingly impossible. They have taught themselves to open cupboards and doors without the use of opposable thumbs. They can climb up and down a seventy-degree ladder to the loft. While trying to put myself to sleep a couple nights ago, I watched a cat silhouette drop off the edge of the sleeping loft and then heard a dull thud as he plummetted to the couch seven feet below.

Why can't they just eat the food? They are hungry and have indicated they know it's food. Right now they are taking turns hiding in a bag, eating the nasty dried up remains of oat grass, and staring at the bowl plaintively mewing.

EAT THE FOOD

hello goodbye

Spring is creeping forth... the weather hit sixty degrees over the weekend and the city seemed to take a deep breath and in its exhale, express a volume of people from its confines that I didn't realize existed. The sidewalks were congested with every sort of imaginable personality, many of them with alter personalities in canine form. There are an amazing amount of people with dogs (albeit smaller, as a mean) in this city, especially given the size homes we have.

The weather this week is set to be in the forties and somewhat grey and rainy... perfect for the seattlite, especially after the streak of days in the teens and tens. as the weather transforms from bitterly icy toward balmy, I can feel change on so many levels. I've gotten news from Seattle in the past few days, some surprising, some interesting, and some downright shocking- a dear friend has ended a long relationship; a former coworker has committed suicide. The managing principal in my office has resigned and they are replacing him with a her, and she's incredible; a visionary, insightful and a breath of fresh air in the office I felt to be so much a boys' club since I started. she speaks of the "seismic change" occurring in the world and country and even especially new york, and how it's an opportunity. She is the Femme-Obama.

In this "time of uncertainty," where my office has laid off nearly a third of its staff and may have to do so again, and people across the country are without jobs and homes and major corporations are disappearing into the annals of history, we need reassurance. Though I wasn't surprised to see the economy dive down to even out after years of exponential growth, I've been relatively optimistic as to its impacts. Though change is almost always hard somehow, it's essential and needed to keep momentum. However, in this town, where so many are so focused on personal and financial success and the cost of staying afloat is so high, sometimes it's natural to get caught up in the concerns of how all the change may negatively impact us. It's very refreshing to hear someone speak of how these changes may positively impact us, and reshape our work and the world as we know it for the better.

Lately things have been constantly inconstant- less coworkers, different coworkers; people getting engaged to start new lives together, people breaking up to start new lives on their own; many babies born, people passing. In the early part of today I took the first test in a series of five intensive licensure exams (our equivalent of the bar exam); later today I was stuck in the back of the office scanning dozens and dozens of large-format drawing edits and found myself questioning my chosen career path.

But you know, I dig it all. I love it. I'm not sure if it's the place I am physically, or mentally, but the concept of endless possibility is completely invigorating to me right now. Start working partially within the company as a firm photographer? maybe. Return to the northwest to an old flame? maybe. Move to France? maybe... become an environmental artist?...redirect my career path toward writing?.... find someone to have kids and have a calm life with?... yeah, maybe that too, eventually. Bring it.

Bring the fresh spring breezes finding their way to the city- I am enjoying my newly-perceived status as a pawn of fate. Bring them and I'll tumble along like the foam thrust across the sand by the breaking surf.

listening: Black Keys' Attack and Release

good weather!

sixty degrees today, the first jacketless day of the season.

everyone's coming out of the woodwork; my neighborhood looks and is acting like a zoo, literally and metaphorically. tourists, fur, animal prints, hordes of people, everything. I pray- may it not get very cold again before spring truly hits- I'm ready to start regularly strolling again.

direct hit

question: what happens when you place two moderately-attractive, moderately well-dressed, single girls in the line of fire for the tap in a popular manhattan bar? many direct hits.

by happenstance, two seats in front of the bar opened up at Bua, the decent but oddly-named East Village hangout, when a friend and I showed up there, on a testosterone-heavy night. somehow we attracted an international crowd, various Irish dudes, an australian, an arabic guy, and one extremely tall american dude in an oakland a's cap.

I'd reccommend it for fun times and free drinks.... though it's a gamble- if you're not at the right place, you're likely to get some undesirables hitting on you at the bar I'd imagine, but it can be colorful, being the greeting committee. I got called "kinda bitchy" (somewhat friendly manner, but nonetheless) by an aggressive irish guy... and he kept hitting on me for quite a bit. I'm not bragging about being dubbed "bitchy," but it's amusing. Moreso if you know me...? Right? Funny, right?

Turd Ferguson

Just refreshed myself on a classic SNL moment: Celebrity Jeopardy.

Burt Reynolds, Sean Connery.
Turd Ferguson.
ape tit.
threeve.


Turd Ferguson - SNL