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the bitter unfairness of food
Thursday, Jan. 25, 2007 | link

Today my boggler is boggling over the unforgiveable badness inside a shitty compromise muffin at Starbucks: 540 calories and 30 grams of fat for one of those horrible banana nut muffins?! Which you only buy because you're panicked with hunger and don't want to completely obliterate your health? So you try to be good, you steer past the almond croissant (550 calories, 32 grams of fat) and the carrot cake with walnuts (700 calories and 43 grams of fat, what??), and pick up that horrible rubber brown muffin, your suspicions lulled by the friendly words "banana" and "nut." When really you might as well be licking on a stick of butter (again).

Meanwhile, just look how little 200 calories buys you when it comes to Hershey's kisses (eight? you only get eight?) and bagels (half a sesame bagel has the same number of calories as almost an entire donut). Yes donuts are mostly fluff (plus fat and love), but still, I would so rather be eating a donut than gnawing on a dry punishment bagel.

And don't you love how this whole lesson boils down in my head to "eat more donuts"? If you only knew how many new revelations decision-tree down to this very same conclusion.



(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)


shut in
Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2007 | link

I've been feeling officially better for about a week now, but I still celebrate each morning by coughing up something otherwordly. This sick refuses to die!

One mildly worrisome bi-product of this nasty cold is that I seem to have devolved into some kind of hermit. I think the last time I really left the house, other than dog-jaunts to Peet's and the super Longs Superstore, was when Jill and I went to Adam and Julia's for a group fondling of the Golden Globes. Which was like...two weeks ago? Wow. Is that possible? Oh wait, I also went to lunch with my mother and godmother yesterday (very fun). But, other than that, it's been pretty much 24-7 Evany time. Just me and the animals and my lap-burning laptop. And a blurred series of I-give-up outfits cobbled together with layers of sleeping gear and tired gym pants. And I've taken to wearing Marco's Ugg boots. Huge, man-sized Uggs, a definite step in the wrong direction.

The thing is, I don't even want to go out, like at all. This reclusiveness has acquired a fierce momentum of its own. The more I stay in, the better staying in sounds, and each home-bound day adds another cozy layer to the cocoon.

There have been a few highlights along the way: for the first time ever, I've allowed myself to get sucked in to American Idol, which sure is a nice hobby for a recluse (especially if you throw in eight solid hours of peeping all the failed contestants on MySpace). And yesterday I managed to use up the last, sad dregs of a jar of peanut butter, and a jar of lingonberry jam, and a bottle of shampoo. All in one day! I so love it when I get to the bottom of things, the tinkling of my knife as it scrapples against the empty glass, the final last burps of shampoo. And then the deep satisfaction of the newly cleared shelf space! I know I'm just going to buy some other jarred thing to put in its place, but I sure do appreciate those open spaces while they last.

I guess it's probably a good thing that I've got a walking date set up for today. And a pie date tomorrow. And a dog show lined up for Sunday. I wonder if I still remember how to converse with real, live peoples. How close are you allowed to stand, again? And how about cupping? Is cupping still allowed?



(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)


from the late-night directTV channel guide
Monday, Jan. 22, 2007 | link

"Broadway Gondolier, 1935: A singing cabby poses as a gondolier for a cheese company, then goes to Venice and becomes one."

In other good news, there's an amazing upsidedown, insideout meta miracle going on over at Television Without Pity. And I posted a new recap!



(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)


meanwhere and elsewhile
Thursday, Jan. 18, 2007 | link

New Desperate Housewives recap up at Television Without Pity (disclaimer: this is probably the most boring recap ever written, thanks to last week's cold, which completely shattered my funny bone), also I updated my crafty pages with some more photos of the crochet Christmas trees. Also I've been doing some fun (for me at least) buy-buy guest posting over at Mighty Goods. Go check yourself! Before you wet yourself.

And then just now on IM:
Me: I just posted a smackdown on the Housewives boards for people using acronyms.
Me: OTP??
Me: Short for "one true pairing"?
Jill: What?
Me: That makes me want to stab my brains out.
Jill: OMG!

And finally: Is it true? Is it possible that I really am still coughing and hacking and sleeping the sleep of the reluctant dead, even though it's a full two weeks since I first contracted this devillness? Apparently it very much is true. And now little sad Marco has the plague, too. And both the dog and cat are in a barfing rut? Our house is a barrel of fun these days -- just a herd of animals snorting and snuffling and hacking and vaguely trying not to bump into each other.



(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)


another big idea
Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007 | link

Here is a genius product brainstorm that I just had: How about a little face sticker that features zit-zapping salve on the sticky side, and then on the side that faces the world you get something fancy -- a sparkly star or shamrock or big thumbs-up sign? So whenever you have a big, nasty, throbbing soul-sucker of a zit (as I do now, right here in the middle of my left cheek, the worst!), you transform it into a blinding decorative element. Because when zits like these strike, no amount of concealer or artfully placed hand gestures are going to cover that thing up. So why not embrace it? Go ahead and gild that lily!



(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)


pumpkin sigh
Monday, Jan. 15, 2007 | link

I always thought that it would be painful to leave my perfect little apartment in the best building in the greatest neighborhood in San Francisco, but when I moved in with Marco last April, it was surprisingly, shockingly easy. No regrets! But then I had to go and read about a brand-new pie store that just opened a half-block away from where I used to live. Half a block away! Pumpkin, apple, walnut pies! Made out of organic produce hand-grown by cute high school students, who are using the whole process to learn about sustainability, meaning not only are these good pies, but that it's all for an astoundingly nice cause? Ouch, ouch. I'm not kidding, it actually makes me a little teary.



(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)


if I only had a brain
Friday, Jan. 12, 2007 | link

Darling? Have you seen my brain? It's full of money and tampons and lip balm?


"Brain Bags are here!" $65, also available in green, all on Etsy.



(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)


as I always suspected
Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2007 | link

"A species of moth drinks tears from the eyes of sleeping birds using a fearsome proboscis shaped like a harpoon, scientists have revealed." (Thanks to Paul for the good news!)



(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)


it's alive, sort of
Tuesday, Jan. 09, 2007 | link

I took a shower today! And put on real clothes! With zippers and hooks! And I even went on a short, short walk! Also there was only an hour's worth of jack-hammering today!

So I guess I'm feeling better, though I tell you, the world is still a very strange, muffled, sweaty place. And there's still a revolving bouquet of used tissues on my bedside table, yay. Hack, hack, hack!



(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)


still, still, still sicko
Monday, Jan. 08, 2007 | link

Oh man, this cold. I spent Friday and Saturday night on the couch just so my coughing wouldn't keep Marco awake (and because I secretly love sleeping on couches...something about that tall, padded wall on one side, like sleeping in a cushy clam), but last night I was feeling slightly better so I rolled into bed only to wake up and find Marco out on the couch: apparently I coughed and coughed all night long (all night), all night long (all night!), which I vaguely remember, though I think I thought it was just a dream about choking and death. The barrier between reality and that peculiar repetitive anxious torture dream-state is porous indeed these sick days and nights.

Between all my endless napping in strange formations on the couch and bed and floor, I've also managed to put a horrendous crick in my neck, so my torso, shoulders, neck, and head are all moving like one fused log. And I've been wearing the sad, schlumpy clothing of the ill for almost a full week now, nothing but sweatpants and sweat-like pants, and socks with four inches of flopping, loose toe, and no bra: udderly fantastic. Also my grey hairs have leapt from "sprinkling" to "going grey" since last Wednesday. And PG&E just started their two-month jack-hammer project out in front of the apartment.



(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)


boy wonder
Friday, Jan. 05, 2007 | link

Seven or so years ago, I gifted upon my goddaughter, Lulu, a pair of glittery red bathing suit bottoms, along with a miniature kimono I bought in Japantown. ("What if it turns out to be a girl?" the grandmother asked me at the baby shower, and I said, "Even BETTER!") When Lulu grew out of them, Dinah wore them, and then baby Rex got his turn.

Rex is four now, well past the recommended age range for the bathing suit. But still, when his mother Sophia told him to "go put some pants on," just look what he came up with:


Photos courtesy of Marco.



(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)


sicko!
Thursday, Jan. 04, 2007 | link

On Tuesday, in a cliched nod to the New Year and all the clean-slatedness that it implies, I dusted off the old pilates DVD and did some languid crunching and stretching. Then yesterday I awoke to find my body in a red tangle of soreness, the kind that jabs whenever you laugh (and I had lunch with Maggie yesterday, which meant there was much laughing). Ah exercise, I remember you now. And then, at about 3pm I suddenly started feeling those first tendrils of ill, the throat tickle, the visions of bed dancing in my swimming head. Oh, sigh. Is it possible that I finally, finally caught this wretched cold that everyone's been talking about? I lurched for home and climbed right under the covers, and when I awoke a few hours later it was dark and I was officially sick. Pilates sore and skin-achy: what a terrible kick-off for the new year. Even my ears hurt! Cough, hiss.



(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)


a great chance to do a small something
Wednesday, Jan. 03, 2007 | link

Yay! At long last, the fantastically heartwarming Kim Family Benefit Art + Craft Auction is now open for bidding, and it's packed with precious donations from some of the best crafters out there -- what an amazing group of lovely, generous, caring, talented people! And bidding is already at a frenzied pitch, which truly toasts my ticker.

I'm particularly piqued by Ann Wood's wonderful Fortitude ship (something about it just embodies the dreamy, static-haired absorption of a full day of bed-bound childhood reading), and the sumptious Paala grey wool dress from Janna Stark, and ooh Annie Galvin's Sutro Tower painting, just to name a few of the many items that sorely tempt me -- really, everything there is ridiculously covet-able.

I've already instructed my wallet to practice touching its toes so it's amply stretched come "Place Bid" time!



(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)


flying high, now
Monday, Jan. 01, 2007 | link

This new year is off to a spectacular start, what with last night's champagned countdown amidst so many of my well-dressed friends at Adam and Julia's, and then too many homemade blueberry pancakes this morning, followed by Sandra's good luck soup this afternoon, with a comfortable viewing of one of my all-time favorite movies in between. And then Marco, Jill, and I finished off this lazy first day of the new year with ten rounds of Rocky, yow.

Welcome 2007, I greet you with open arms and a deep, sloppy, chin-chaffing french-style kiss, the kind that barrel-rolls all the way down your throat and doesn't stop until tickles your littlest toes. This is our year, I can feel it! Especially since both Marco and I managed to burn through a bunch of last-minute misfortune in the final days of 2006: he erroneously washed his cellphone on the sturdy cotton cycle while we were in San Diego, and then he bought an emergency replacement phone only to discover that it's actually a knock-off and thus unable to sanely mesh with T-Mobile's voicemail system (instead of a chime and a sensible little icon, now each voicemail is heralded with three text messages, each announced with ultra-loud, vibrating fanfare) and full of interface typos ("dialling"?); meanwhile, I paid to have my favorite boots fixed -- the hard plastic form at the heel had worked itself through the lining of one boot and was cutting holes in my stockings and also foot -- only to discover that I'd sicced the bootmaker on wrong boot. And then I left my favorite new jacket in Los Angeles! Luckily nice Sophia is mailing it back to me, so that's not officially bad news (even though there have been at least three occasions in the past week that I've bitterly wished I could wear it, BITTERLY), but still it speaks to a general spazziness that I am very much hoping is done and gone now that Double-Oh-Seven is here, a year that I'm relying on to be more witty, sharper of mind, and far better dressed than klutzy (but still lovable! last year was very good to me!) 2006.



(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)



(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)


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