Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in amousenamedbear's LiveJournal:

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009
9:36 pm	next week I now have approval from my insurance for the hospital, so I'm going in on Monday. My dad's flying out Sunday evening to be there with me for the beginning, and he'll be there until wednesday morning. Mom gets in on thursday so she can be with me when they let me go on Friday. five days in the hospital is a little daunting. I'm not actually sure if I've spent more than one day in the hospital before. With my appendix I was out eight hours or so after surgery. When I was in for asthma when I was little, I can't remember. it wasn't very long. I've got a bit of anxiety that's showing up as nausea and tingling in my hands, though the latter could just be part of the migraine. I'm excited, though. The treatment I'll be getting has a really high success rate. It might not be immediate, though. It could take days or weeks for the full effect. Come visit, me! I will be very bored. And I worry about too much togetherness with my dad and welcome diversions.   Current Mood: anxious (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 5th, 2009
10:48 pm	I totally heart global warming I know it makes me a bad person or something, but I am "tickled pink" as my grandmother used to say,  about global warming today. Why? Because in this week's csa box, I got GREEN GARLIC. GREEN GARLIC!!!??? That happens in April or May. Not in the beginning of February. So I also heart my CSA, Terra Firma Farm. I was so excited when I saw it I sent out about 5 texts to various friends about it. One who lives a couple of blocks away from me responded "bring it over and we'll cook you dinner with it!"  I turned around (having just passed their street on my way home from the csa pickup) and went straight to Joe and Dana's place, where Dana made a divine chicken marsala which we ate with a spinach salad made from my csa's spinach (which we are all impressed with) with a green garlic vinaigrette. And birite's honey lavender ice cream for dessert. And a bottle of nice french wine from the cellar to drink. Such a lovely evening. I am also thrilled that Joe had never had green garlic before and thought it was a red onion until he cut into it and saw the little baby cloves and smelled the delightful smell. It's fun to show an epicurian new vegetables- they love you forever for it. Current Mood: happy (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
10:25 am	and another one! I just got word that I'm a finalist in this.  I'm in the top 175 (out of over 600). In a month or so I will find out if I win the Grand Prize of having a book published of my work. I won't hold my breath, and even if I don't, it's worth it, bc I get my work seen by a gajillion curators and the like, so there's potential to get shows, too. hooray for more positive things. the most positive one this week? A phone call yesterday saying that I have an appointment on Thursday at the headache clinic. I almost cried I was so happy. Hopefully soon I will have ANSWERS and a fucking CURE. Current Mood: excited (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, October 17th, 2008
12:07 pm	Dear Universe, Thank you for giving me a little hope. Frankly, I was expecting to fire you today, but to find out that I'm accepted into a show juried by my all-time favorite feminist art critic?? That's above and beyond any possible thoughts. After almost a year of no shows, and getting into NOTHING I applied for, this was a happy surprise indeed. Now can you heal everyone? I'd trade this show for that in a heartbeat. Thanks, Amousenamedbear (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 16th, 2008
10:51 pm	Dear Universe, This week has been unconscionable. We need a break. Could you please stop hurting me and mine? I'm trying to ask nicely, but frankly, if you continue on this path, I will have to fire you. One thing you can do to make up for the absolutely sucktasticness of this week is find the person who is marketing "organic" sea salt and strike him with lightning. Perhaps that will knock some sense into him. thanks! love, amousenamedbear Current Mood: tired (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 9th, 2008
5:52 am	book meme * Grab the nearest book. * Open the book to page 56. * Find the fifth sentence. * Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions. * Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST. "To make the caramel sauce, in a saucepan over high heat, combine the cream and butter and heat until melted together." - From the book _Hot Chocolate_, recipe for Ginger Caramel Hot Chocolate, which is sounding REALLY fucking good right now since I can't sleep. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
9:32 pm	celebrity circus! I fucking love that someone came up with this show. It's just starting. I've never heard of most of the contestants, but who cares? this is going to be ridiculously fun. though of course, in terms of actual circus performance, boy do they suck. it's retarded, but I can't look away! Current Mood: amused Current Music: crappy tv music (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
8:24 pm	knitting dorkiness I haven't been knitting in a while- too busy with other things. I've been wanting to do a sweater (or sweater vest, along with the ladies) for a while, but felt like I needed to do something brainless before that. So today I started a scarf. It's made of the same variegated red and pink yarn that my thick fuzzy armwarmers are made of, and it's just stockinette with a garter stitch border, which really highlights the nubby texture of the yarn. I have about 9" done, only ~4 feet to go! Current Mood: chipper Current Music: the daily show (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008
10:36 am	here's what I've learned: (that I've known for years, but ignored yesterday) I should not drink coffee in the afternoon. I *never* drink coffee. If I drink it in the afternoon, I will lie in bed at 3AM, pissy that I can't sleep. grrr. arrrgh. xo, Tired McCrankypants Current Mood: sleepy (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, December 3rd, 2007
7:20 am	I am dumb. Last night, I got home from Blade Runner and decided to watch Dexter, which I love. Watching a serial killer show right before going to bed is not a good idea- I had nightmares about being a serial killer. They were horrible. Right now, I am up due to the fact that it is once again raining in my bathroom. grrr. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 25th, 2007
8:53 pm	mmmmmoussaka I was jealous of sarah's moussaka at dinner last night, so tonight have attempted to make it, sans wheat. It's bastardized- I added mushrooms, and ricotta besides the eggplant, meat and bechamel. I will report back. this was such a lovely weekend. thanksgiving with an entourage of lovelies, then friday a post-thanksgiving thanksgiving at sarah and shabbir's.  Yesterday I did nothing, until going to see the red balloon and white mane with sarah, which was a LOT creepier than I remember the red balloon being from when I was 6 (sorry sarah!). Then greek for dinner, and home. Today I went chez pesto for brunch, and stayed there slouching until 5, after which I stopped at birite to pick up the lovely veg and meat for the moussaka. Now it's in the oven and I'm happily watching Dexter, which I get WAY too into for my own good. (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 22nd, 2007
12:13 pm	my home smells better than yours Done: One pumpkin cheesecake with hazelnut crust One chocolate pecan pie with traditional (wheat-based) crust from scratch One GORGEOUS apple cobbler with oatmeal topping I made the cobbler today, while listening/watching a really delightful documentary on photography on OVTV, whatever that is. The first part had Chuck Close talking about photography, and how photography is the easiest of the arts to master technically, it's the most difficult to achieve a distinctive style. I heart Chuck Close, he GETS art. Truly one of my art heroes. The documentary went from the beginning of photography through ww1, discussing changes in technology, how the vernacular photography came to be (one thing I learned, that I can't believe I didn't know- I had always thought that people smiling in pictures was a natural part of the evolution of film, because it was a lot faster than it had been. Turns out Kodak had a campaign encouraging people to have fun with photography and therefore smile in pictures. Who knew??) Second part thus far is depression- August Sander in Germany, Rodchenko's being forced to censor his own photos, Walker Evans/Dorothea Lange/WPA, and WW2- documents of the ghettos as well as Robert Capa's war images. Really interesting, showing how photography changed war. I am a big ol' nerd. Current Mood: accomplished Current Music: documentary on ww2 photography (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 16th, 2007
2:44 am	lovely, lovely night birthday party over at Ceebaby's, with lots of my favorite people (including mom, dad, the bastard redheaded stepsister, spookie, firesarah, netzard, plus many more lovelies). Really mellow night, drinking wine but not being drunk, eating good food (though I was bad and ate cookies, they were too delicious looking, I will pay later in the week), and gabbing with everyone. I've now sold firesarah on going back to the bfct next year because I pointed out that as the American Dream, we can be capitalist pigs to our hearts' content. We'll make a killing in that "gift" economy (everyone can buy their gifts from us!). Everyone left around the same time; I had planned on walking the 4 blocks home, but netzard offered to drive me home. We got to talking about life, the universe, and everything, and so she came in and we talked for a good long time inside my absolutely mortifyingly disgusting apartment. I think that might have been the first time she and I have sat down and talked, just the two of us, without anyone else around. and yet again, I will start with the hippy love fest: Netzard is really fucking wonderful. I must add her to my list of brand new girlfriends of 2007 whom I can't imagine not having around now-  getting to know ladymsruby, spookie, firesarah and netzard, all in one year (and not to mention the renewal and growth of my friendship with ceebaby and others whom I'd already known decently before)? I'm a lucky lady, indeed. It's hard to believe that a year ago I'd never met spookie, didn't know much about ladymsruby other than I thought she was hot and one of the few kikes I knew in SF, only knew firesarah as a snarky voice on the fandango list, and knew I liked netzard but had never spent much time with her. I'm just so fucking grateful to all of the amazing women in my life. I have not had lady friends in this quantity and of this quality since I left Bryn Mawr. Current Mood: impressed Current Music: dylan- "tangled up in blue" (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 14th, 2007
1:06 pm	Dear Mr. Spider Generally speaking, I don't mind sharing my space with you. I appreciate that you eat the flying bugs that vex me so. I almost never kill your friends, and don't even relocate you to outside my apartment. I really try hard to like you. However, I found your actions today to be rude and inconsiderate. I was naked, in the shower, happily washing my hair. I turned around to rinse the shampoo out, and there you were, dangling two inches away from my face. I screamed and stepped back; you climbed your way back up your web to the corner in the ceiling where you usually dwell. That just wasn't cool, Mr. Spider. That is my private naked space, and I did not invite you in. If you attempt this again, I will not hesitate to spray you with the shower and wash you down the drain. You have been warned. love, Rachael (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, July 13th, 2007
8:36 am	"If I want to have an affair, or play sex games, or do M&M's, you can't stop me! " I heart the movie 9 to 5. Truly one of the funniest movies ever made. (Comment on this)
Monday, July 9th, 2007
6:24 pm	Home- come see the art show Come to this before the Fandango Fundraiser! I've seen a good chunk of the work, and it looks gorgeous. HOME Is home a fleeting dwelling place? A memory? Luxury for the rich? Site of regional identity? Domestic heaven or hell? Nostalgic marker for lost history? Who can lay claim to the white-picket-fenced symbol of the American dream? This exhibition taps into a resonant theme in contemporary art and society: the aesthetics and politics of home. The 30 artists in the exhibition interpret the elusive concept of home in innovative works of sculpture, video, film, photography, and painting. The exhibition includes artists who use domestic architecture as structure, reconstruct abandoned houses in miniature from photographs, document the process of moving and dwelling, or point to the lack of affordable housing in places like San Francisco. Other pieces break the illusion of security associated with childhood homes, humanize images of homelessness, or document the destruction of public housing. While most of these artists reside in the San Francisco Bay Area, many speak of distant homelands, real or imagined. Home shows the various and elusive resonance of houses, homes, dwellings, from the anonymity of the built environment to the promise of bliss and identity in the domestic interior. Opening Reception: Saturday, July 14, 7-10pm Exhibition Dates: July 13-28, 2007 Gallery Hours for the Exhibition: Wednesdays-Saturdays, 12-4 pm (or by appointment) Gallery 3175 ROOT DIVISION 3175 17th Street (at South Van Ness & Shotwell) San Francisco, CA 94110 Featuring work by: Verda Alexander Eric Araujo Mr. Ben Venom Ronit Bezalel Mark Blaisdell Jan Blythe Alexander Cheves Elizabeth Chiles Teri Claude Torreya Cummings Derek Haverland Jessica Hayes Sarah Talia Himmelfarb Rachael Jablo* Ian Kimmerly Sarah Klein Michael Krouse* Seth Lower Moira Murdock Sasha Petrenko Meghann Riepenhoff Dan Rule Jana Rumberger Nadim Sabella Brian Stinemetz Chris Thorson Liena Vayzman Sanjay Vora Hannah Pearl Walcott* Donna Wan Serena Wellen * Root Division Resident Artist Current Mood: chipper (Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 19th, 2007
9:34 am	So far, so good Today will be day #3 off the wheat. So far, no ill effects. I think I will wait until at least day 6 to declare that it's ok for me to occasionally partake. If that is in fact the case, I SO want to go out for a beer! (Comment on this)
Sunday, June 17th, 2007
10:03 am	blackberry, blackberry, blackberry MEDITATIONS AT LAGUNITAS All the new thinking is about loss. In this it resembles all the old thinking. The idea, for example, that each particular erases the luminous clarity of a general idea. That the clown- faced woodpecker probing the dead sculpted trunk of that black birch is, by his presence, some tragic falling off from a first world of undivided light. Or the other notion that, because there is in this world no one thing to which the bramble of blackberry corresponds, a word is elegy to what it signifies. We talked about it late last night and in the voice of my friend, there was a thin wire of grief, a tone almost querulous. After a while I understood that, talking this way, everything dissolves: justice, pine, hair, woman, you and I. There was a woman I made love to and I remembered how, holding her small shoulders in my hands sometimes, I felt a violent wonder at her presence like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river with its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat, muddy places where we caught the little orange-silver fish called pumpkinseed. It hardly had to do with her. Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances. I must have been the same to her. But I remember so much, the way her hands dismantled bread, the thing her father said that hurt her, what she dreamed. There are moments when the body is as numinous as words, days that are the good flesh continuing. Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings, saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry. (Robert Haas, 1987) When I was little, I spent part of each summer on my grandparents' farm in Greenbriar County, West Virginia. It was right on the Greenbriar River, and most days would be spent running around in the fields, or in the river, or sneaking off to the store down the road to buy candy, or wandering through the secret passageways in the old plantation house and hiding the snickers bars that granddad used to keep in the freezer. A couple of times each summer, though, we would go with grandma (and our mothers) to the side of a road and spend the day picking blackberries. It was gloriously fun, though looking back they would have gotten way more done had they left us out in the fields eating raw corn on the farm, as we kids ate more than we put in our buckets. We complained a lot- when I was 18 and spent the summer with my grandparents, Grandma expressed surprise that I wanted to go berry picking because we all bitched so much- but we loved it, and especially loved reaping the rewards of homemade jam and cobbler and pie. Today, both grandparents are long dead, the farm has passed through two different hands since our family sold it, and has fallen into disrepair. My mother, who for years has gone back to Greenbriar County to pick berries each summer at a pick-your-own farm, has two ruptured discs in her back and can't pick berries (but hopefully will be able to do it again after her surgery in August). Every summer I still get the itch to reach into the prickly brambles and stain my hands and clothes purple. So, yesterday, I took nine of my lovely friends, most of whom didn't really know each other, out to a pick-your-own farm to celebrate my birthday and summer. It was gray and coldish when we started, and of course warmed up as soon as we left the farm for Santa Cruz. I now have six flats of blackberries in my refrigerator waiting to be crushed with lots of sugar to make jam which I will share with all of the lovely friends who came out to play with me and donated their hard-earned berries to the cause. And of course, some will go to my mother since she's not able to pick her own these days. She's the one who taught me to love this, after all. I am a happy, happy girl. Current Mood: calm Current Music: xtc oranges and lemons (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 14th, 2007
11:53 am	only 3 years and 3 days later... Last night Fearless Spookie admonished me about not being on livejournal, so here I am. I am going to add the people I know and love, and keep most of my posts friends only, given the oh-so-glorious history I have with blogs. but here I am! My birthday was wonderful, actually the best birthday I've had since the last time I posted here. Scott and Wendy and I went to the conservatory of flowers for the Chomp! exhibit on carnivorous plants, then I had drinks with a few friends and my dad, and then dad took me and alex to delfina for dinner. Lovely, lovely day. Last night I went with miss spookie and ceebaby to BAGG, where we spent most of the night being extraordinarily catty regarding the silly people around us. Tonight is pesto, where there will be spankings galore (you know, I didn't get ANY last year so I think I'm owed twice the amount), as well as a real CAKE that I will make, as I am checking the wheat allergy this week (once every six months or so). Tomorrow I have an old friend's party, then some big fire thing in Oakland. and Saturday is my birthday berry-picking extravaganza. hooray! Current Mood: bouncy (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 11th, 2004
5:48 pm	don't know why i'm doing this other than to have access to the private thoughts of my friends. tomorrow's my birthday. today's been a somewhat crappy day. tomorrow will be a good day. my mom sent me a package that I receieved today- a HUGE uhaul box filled with helium balloons, a heart-shaped pan of brownies, some silly "happy birthday" banner type things, and my favorite, a card she forgot to sign. That's the extent of my birthday loot so far. (Comment on this)