I can't convince you never to use Comic Sans MS

Rule: I can't convince you never to use Comic Sans, but DO NOT ever, EVER use it on your resume or cover letter. I don't care how "fun" you are or want to seem. This is not the place. Don't do it. I will go to your parents' house, pose your childhood toys in offensive positions, set fire to the whole thing, then photoshop your face on a picture of your parents having nasty sex and send it to you and all your friends. It is at that point that I will come find you and punch you straight in the reproductive organs, step over your groaning face, open up your email, and attach that picture to an email to your girlfriend/boyfriend asking if we can "try this next time."

Don't do it.

How do you survive as a text-based blog?

A little
poem
is all
you have
left
of your attention
span.


Rule: (at least it seems like a rule) Blog posts without photos rarely get read.

Sometimes I stare at the ceiling trying to figure out if my blog posts are interesting/useful enough to carry a reader's attention to the very end. Anyone have any thoughts on how to keep attention as a text/writing-based blog? Saw someone's blog had categorized posts by the time it takes to read them. Kind of neat.

Photo by me.

O Hai, Humidity

I made candy last week. Not just any candy though, this candy. Tartelette is an awesome food/pastry blogger, and I admire her skill with food and cameras to no end! I highly recommend checking her blog out.

No, I didn't make the cake. It turns out that in my quest to learn how to bake, I also figured out a loophole to make it so I end up cooking.

Sugar/pasty work is hard. Lots of things can go wrong; even the slightest mistake can lead to your food not turning out right (see also: disastrous, sticky burning), and because of that, it's hard to tell whether recipes actually work. In making this, I was like, "Is the recipe not working right? Is my thermometer not calibrated correctly? Did I heat it up too much? Oh no, did I bump the pot? Is the thermometer crystalizing the sugar and reading incorrectly?" I also did a lot of thinking, "AAAAAUGHHH WHY IS THIS SO HARD???"

To be fair, however, I only failed twice. 3rd time, and ignoring the original recipe's the charm, apparently. Caveat: it is really humid here, so it's also unclear whether that affects the original recipe, even though the writer of the recipe is also in a humid part of the mid-Atlantic (see why this is confusing and complicated?). Fortunately for my sanity, I had previously made candy at a Hollywood Magic (or some other badass name) at a day camp at the best museum in the world: The Science Museum of Minnesota. Go there. Be in awe. So I knew that if I just made something like a lollipop, it would achieve the correct effect. I also found this really ugly and horribly designed website that also happens to be the most informative site on candy making out there. Please beware on behalf of your eyes. Has awesome troubleshooting and tips section.

AAAANYWAY, here was the final result.


Yes, you're seeing that correctly; not only did I not bake a cake, I didn't really have anything to stick it in besides this bread.

It was beautiful, thin, colorful, and delicious. Except then the humidity made it sticky. And bloomy aka ended up looking like it was molding. Then when I brought it to work to share, all the pieces stuck to each other in one giant, pointy, shard-y lump. HOWEVER at that point, they were still translucent and really did look like a stained glass window. I AM STILL COUNTING THAT AS A SUCCESS.

Rule: Sugar gets very hot and above the temperature boils at, and is STICKY. Meaning if you get some on you while hot, not only will be be worse than pouring boiling water on yourself, IT WILL ATTACH TO YOU. Please have a bowl of ice water for dunking hot body parts into just in case. Also, perseverance is delicious. As Tartelette says, do not fear the sugar!

Disease! Germs! Comfort food!

Things strewn about my house when I am sick:

1 small cast-iron skillet, buttered, with fried egg fragments on the 2nd to largest burner of the stove
1 stick of butter, partially unwrapped
1 thermos of earl grey tea
1 mug of almost-gone earl grey tea
1 book of "Extreme Fiction" on top of toilet tank
1 glass of orange juice, empty except for little dried pulp bits
2 cell phones, near laptop
1 laptop, with several internet windows and tabs open
1 blanket, dragged everywhere I go
Several cookbooks, open to different pages
3 plates, 2 bowls, 1 mixing bowl, 2 spatulas, 5 glasses in the sink
A multitude of crumbs
Ideas about cooking
Thoughts about exercise
Feelings of self-pity
Several coughs
Headaches stay in my head
1 jar of Nutella, almost empty
1 knife with faint smears of Nutella on it

Rule: If you spend a bunch of time worrying about and planning a big event, then throw yourself wholly into it, you will get sick. Also: butter is an excellent healing agent.

Short and sweet

rule: your automated phone system should never just hang up on a customer. they should always have the option to go back to the main menu, talk to a real person, or hang up themselves.

Countless times, ineffectual automated phone systems have tried to tell me information that I didn't need, then hang up on me. I have always called them back and pressed lots of buttons until I talked to a real person. I do not need to know all your hours and return policy and what your cat ate for lunch for the past five days BEFORE I press any buttons.

Brains spill out

Rule: Make time for yourself and the things you value.

Remember that long list of stuff to do?

So far I have only done:
- buy an effing comforter and duvet cover (just bought a comforter that was attractive)
- find hippie deodorant that works well (actually just decided I'm not hippie enough for hippie deodorant and instead bought some awesome Nivea deodorant on the internet)
- save more money (just a little, but hooray!)
- read more

Which, I mean, crossing stuff off the list is cool, but this is not a lot compared to the original list. My comforter effing rocks though, especially in the chilly weather we're having. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I really don't have a post for you guys, so I'm going to dig up some old poetry and post it here as a placeholder. It's NaNoWriMo and Movember, y'all, and while I hate one and love the other, I don't have the temerity or hormones to do either (I'll let you guess which is a requirement of which). But maybe you'll see some better attempts at writing.

So I guess my rule really is:

Rule: Gee, Sandy should've planned ahead for this week, huh? Instead of pigging out on Kouign Amann and having crazy butter-induced dreams.

Anyway, at least this poem is fall-themed.

How I wanted to lecture my daughter

Don’t you feel kind of bad for them?
The saplings, so smooth and round and skinny
twigtips – outstretched - to feel - the sun?
Any old breeze can brush by
and bruise their ego, their limbs
trembling with rage and passion to grow upward
like they’re ready to get
outta this town.
Older trees creak – whisper – hushhh
in the night while the
saplings twist – breathe – ahhhh
so pliable. And then

The fall comes.

The chlorophyll withdraws.
Stately maples blush while the juveniles
burn so hot in the autumn light they
are on fire – they are on fire – they
are on fire – they
have so few of those leaves to drop,
you can see between each one
but they toss them on the ground until

nakedness.

A melancholy pool of red at their feet. And
later, when the ice comes,
I wonder:
Do they regret?

To do list.

It's list time.

Things that just overwhelmed me recently:

- bought a ring from a vintage store. will imbue with meaning. somehow.
- get better at dancing
- get back out to Eastern Market before it gets cold
- get better at writing
- design my Halloween costume of Cthulu
- respond thoughtfully to others' emails (sorry, you know who you are!)
- be a good listener
- post a draft blog post I've been saving for a while
- attend more cultural/art events in the city (Arts on Foot, Crafty Bastards, Pilobolus, augh!)
- visit all the museums that are free
- go camping/cook stuff outdoors
- figure out if being in a relationship with no real plan is ok
- find hippie deodorant that works well (trying this out)
- participate more actively in my community-supported agriculture program
- travel more
- save more money (not sure how I will make this and previous work together)
- learn to cook better
- take more photos
- wear that scarf my boyfriend bought me
- become more fit
- dress like a French lady
- read more
- listen to more TED talks
- paint some ceramic
- use my ampersand printers blocks
- decorate my house like a European cafe
- reinvent wheel
- buy an effing comforter and duvet cover
- buy a pocketwatch
- decide what i want to do with life??
- start an etsy store?
- question marks
- try more restaurants
- move where my friends are/make my friends move where i am
- become better at making conversation
- be as smart as i was in high school
- go to the club with DVS and dance till i drop

I have no idea when I will have time to do all of these things.

Rule: Occasionally smack yourself in the face with all of your current goals. It will help you re-prioritize. Then figure out concrete ways to take the first step in achieving these goals. Any helpful tips welcome.

Backlogged rule 2

Do not be that girl.

You're hanging out at the bar, having a good time, and you end up needing to pee. So you head to the bathroom, and pushing by you on their way into the bathroom are two girls. Rather pretty, very polished.

One of them says to the other, "An' then-uh, he was like, iunno all like call you or su'thee... An' I was like yah-uh, ih was gradle-like, meechoo. Or wha'ever." (translation: "And then he was like, 'Give me your number for when I'm lonely.' And I was like, 'Sure, I feel like the emptiness in my head must be replaced by a filling of the vagina.'")

Good heavens, woman. Where did your tongue go? DID YOU HAVE A HORRIFYING CHILDHOOD ACCIDENT? No. The answer is no, she did not have a horrifying, childhood, tongue-removing accident. She just doesn't use it in speech. A couple of hypotheses as to why not: she's incredibly lazy. It is just WAY too hard for her to use her tongue to talk. Her tongue is just heavier than everybody else's tongue. Using it for speech would tire the muscle so much she would not be able to perform the important function of eating. In fact, it would tire the rest of her body. She would lie comatose on her bed at her parents' place, drooling onto a quilt, while her mother makes soothing noises and tucks Mr. BunBun into bed with her. How dare you try to make her use her tongue like a mere mortal. For shame.

Second hypothesis: her tongue is just used to being depressed to the bottom of her mouth, so she doesn't use it. This is tangential to the other problem this girl typically has; her mouth is always open. Not in a fly-catching way, but in a - what is to her - seemingly seductive pose of mild surprise and invitation. It is as though with every passing second, she is expecting a penis to fall out of the sky into her mouth. Her annoying tongue-less speech pattern is actually just broadcasting, "Hey, in case you thought anything would get in the way... NOPE! So please, go wild." That's right, your sphincter just got a little more relaxed because that's so sexy. Or maybe it didn't.

Either way. Don't be her. And eat a freaking sandwich, dude.