Perfectionism: Practice Makes Perfect

So one of my other hobbies, that maybe if I can get good enough I will land a job, is cake decoration. Well, mostly cupcakes. Big cakes are an elusive creature for my skill level. But my cupcake rock. And that was enough to make me think that I could do this when I saw it.



Let's just say that the first attempt is less than flattering. And more than a little annoying. Annoying because I used to have the ability to pick up an instruction and duplicate the process nearly perfectly. I have noticed since the heart issue began that several skills have been diminished. Fine motor skills are nearly non existent. I tried putting together a bracelet and could barely thread the large holed beads onto the thread. And now, there is this mess.

It isn't all me. The technique is fabulous. But I started with a frosting that was too thick. I needed to add either more cream of whip it longer. And I didn't have the flat edged scraper that she had. It is in my case of cake decorating things that I sacrificed to avoid my brother. Long story that I might tell later, The frosting was so thick it kept pulling away from the cake. And it was a recipe that another chef called a crusting frosting. Which means that it is great if you are using a texture plate not so good for blending those shades so subtly. With my diminished fine motor skills I couldn't do much to fix it.

And then there is the ganache.  It definitely ran too much. And there is nothing to do about it. I've never made ganache before. I have avoided the german recipes that call for a layer of ganache over a cake. That was a mistake. Practice with a standard ganache application would have taught me about the proper consistency instead of thinking I'd start out of the gate with this technique.

Walk before you Run.
I've never really had to worry about getting ahead of myself before. Like I said, I used to be able to pick up and do. Now I definitely have to practice. It is frustrating. My cupcakes have been perfect all along. The last ones I made about 9 months ago, perfection. So this lack of coordination in my hands is rather new. I don't like this. I like being the genius. Or the Magician. I am not used to this. It feels like I am moving through mud. This near heart attack has been my kryptonite. Now I'm just a regular human. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Use it or You Lose It
Another part of the problem is that it has been a long time since I've done anything creative. I spent the Winter working crazy hours and was too tired to do much of anything like this. Thus, it's been 9 months since I've made a cupcake. Though I am not sure that Anything would have helped this mess other than practice.

Code name: Plum Perspective

Honestly, I forget my hair is purple. I am cooking, bird watching, photographing the food, doing dishes, feeding birds, brushing up on my metaphysics and watching Netflix. I don't see myself. And most days my hair is in a bun because it is too thick and too hot to wear down. So I never see it. The only people who have seen it for the first few days are my housemates. No big deal to anyone. One has a blue faded to green under coat for her black hair and the other has been green, pink, blue and every natural shade imaginable. So my purple comes as no surprise.

Yesterday was the test run for semi public. I had a doctor appointment. No one in the office said anything. No nurses, billing professionals no one. I heard some tittering in the back but they speak in hushed tones when discussing billing errors anyway so it could have been that. My BP was 144 yesterday. I was a bit anxious to see if anything "bad" would happen. Nothing. None of the patients said anything either. Not to me. When the doctor walked in he asked if it was purple that last time he saw me. Nope. I explained why I did it. He laughed an said whatever makes you happy.

I've wanted punk hair since high school. And I was always so busy being a grown up that I never did anything that would interfere with the perceptive of adulthood. I got called out on a facebook posting musing about such things and the kind of prejudice that I was dealing with at work. One of my friends from school, similarly picked on like me attacked me for wanting to be like other people and believing it is okay to deface God's property. He made my hair a certain color and I should leave it that way.

Let me explain something that has gone without saying so far: God doesn't even know what color my hair should be. When I was born it was platinum. Then it was yellow blonde. Then it spent a few years being strawberry blonde. It went back to yellow blonde and stayed that way until just before dad died when it started going redder. So I dyed it a a deeper red. Kept it for about 6 years. Then when I let the red out, cut my hair short short and it gre back it grew back calico: brown, sable, streaks of black, yellow blonde sandy blonde and the dread color grey. You can see just how crazy my hair underneath is now that it is purple because I have every shade of Pantone violet to plum in my hair they make. God can't make up his mind so why does it matter what I do.

That entertained the doctor.

After that I went to the coffee shop. No one said anything. No one stared. And no one got lippy. This was not the experience I expected after some old guys down town harassed the Teenager and I about being sleeveless or goth in public.

My internal dialog went from anxious to "meh, whatever" very quickly and stayed that way. Later when the housemate and I took a walk in the sun around the neighborhood we only got two rednecks staring. So all in all I would say that the experiment is doing well. I honestly was not bothered like I used to be to the slight indifference and felt quite comfortable after the initial venture.

The next venture will be to go grocery shopping and run regular errands and maybe walk around down town and see what happens.

Social Experiment Code Name: Plum Perspective

When I was growing up there were many books and articles that came out about color and personality. One book described the colors a person should wear based on their skin tone that was analogous to the seasons. And the Red Hat society began in earnest. It's motto is essentially to live life in full color. There was a quote that kept with me for many reasons, number one, it referenced my favorite color.

I am in my forties and I have started wearing more purple. I started before dad died. There is a silly thought that says purple belongs to a select group of individuals, that it is too precious for common people. And yet, purple is a beloved color to millions of people. The home decor industry final began making purple items for bed and bath in its myriad shades and made the color even more accessible. So why do so many people still have a thing about homogeneous community standards. It is almost as if purple is as offensive as having your underwear hang out of your pants.

The community in which I live has always had a bit of rural character. Even as we move into a more progressive thought process and begin to adapt to the modern world, sometimes even taking the lead, we are still so backwards in the way that deal with personal appearance.

Somehow, purple has become to many the "fuck you" of fashion statements. It has to go with something else to "tone it down". Not because the color is loud and clashy. But because it is too bold. It is bold. It is too proud somehow. Proud? Is it really pride that the "elders" object to? Or is it the daring?

Purple is definitely a daring color as there are many ways it can go wrong, from and artistic perspective. It can overwhelm. But the right shade, eggplant or aubergine, can also unify and replace black as a neutral. Purple is daring. And it is bold in the sense that it is not the common or safe choice for accents or to be a neutral color. Purple is a color for stepping out of your comfort zone for sure. I think that is why this quote struck such a chord with so many.

Taken from the poem, "Warning" by Jenny Joseph, the idea therein is that purple is the color of abandon. It is the color of not caring what others think, it is the opposite of dull sobriety of manner while being the truest expression of self. And perhaps that is what is so scary for many of a certain mindset. Most people live life with the idea that we grow up to get old, to get ahead and not that we grow up and grow old because that is what we do. It is a process of life. Somehow we have equated seriousness and solemnity with adulthood and aging. And Jenny Joseph, seemed to have figured this out in her thirties.

Written in 1961, the poem is the summation of the behaviors of the aged (men do this sort of thing as well) but written from the perspective of a woman. Indeed, as I am in the menopausal stage and have come to the conclusion that sour people have dictated my life to me for far too long now. Reflective of the age in which one shuns the opinions of others and simply lives in ones most natural state, Warning seems to be the lesson of menopause.

Life is too short not to do the things that you love.

Life is too short to be something you are not for the sake of society's comfort.

Purple is the color of abandon. Not reckless or thoughtlessness, but of radical acceptance of who you are. No, you don't HAVE to wear purple to prove you are free. Embracing your favorite color so that you become synonymous with that color is sufficient. Radical acceptance of who you are, non conformity to the extreme... it is a bold thought.

So I am conducting an experiment. I want to know if I can radically accept myself. While I am recovering from my heart issues, I have decided to dye my hair purple. It will be some weeks before I am able to go back to work. So in the mean time, I have put my beliefs to the test. My hair is a shocking shade of purple. Plum over the calico mess God gave me has produced a range of purple colors on my head that looks a hardware store paint swatch display. I will monitor my internal dialog as I go through the day.

The goal is to see how consistent I think and behave under this acceptance. Home thoughts don't seem to really differ. Though I have been asking myself already what my facebook friends will think. Then we shall see how the internal dialog goes in semi-public I have the doctor tomorrow and several other appointments this week. And then I will take it out for a test drive by going to very public places. How does my brain work when I am alone? How does it work in a safe group of friends? How does it talk to me in each of my public lifes?

There is a difference between the public "go get groceries" life and the public "this is me on twitter life". We can safely assume twitter life is going to be encouraging. We can block mean people there in a way that is not possible when you are at the deli counter.

So we shall see if I can actually back my words with actions.

The Last One that Got Away

This has been quite a Summer for adventures. The fishing is a lot more complex than I thought it was most times. At other times it's as simple as dropping your bait in the water and pulling it right out again. The last trip to a little known and not often traveled spot lead me to that conclusion.

The second I dropped my line in something bit. And then it dragged my bobber under and away. I started reeling for all I am worth. You know that moment when the guys on the sport fishing show get all excited and start shouting? That moment is quickly followed by a fish on the line, leaping out of the water with a wiggle and a waggle and a strenuous attempt to break free of the hook. I had THAT moment.

It was a bigger panfish than I had on the line than ever before. And now that I've said panfish you know we are not talking high seas marlin fishing. Just little bitty baby fish fishing in little bitty lakes. Well... this thing broke out of the water. As it came to the top of it's arc everything seemed to move in slow motion, like cresting the hill on a rollercoaster or that pre-zen nano second that comes before an epiphany.

"Oh my GOD! I'm actually catching a fish! A fish worth keep....     ing."

The split second that time caught up to itself and assumed it's normal pace the fish was free of the hook, my bait was gone and bob's your uncle. Gone. In less than 60 seconds it was gone.

"Fucker!" I yelled and turned right around determined to bait that hook and get another drop in before he scuttled into the dark recesses of a lily pad field.

Bait. Drop. Repeat.

After several more casts all I got was smallest panfish that I've ever caught. Skeletor wouldn't have noticed it in his gullet.

They say that fishing is relaxing. It is not. Reading, painting (sometimes) and listening to music are relaxing. Trying to out smart a fish is as frustrating as getting a toddler out of the costume he or she wants to wear to school in direct violation of every word of a dress code and adult sense of aesthetic.

There is always next time. I guess.

Foodie Fun & Better Photography

I think that I am getting pretty good at taking good foodie photos. A few bits of advice from another food blogger and some inspiration another fan of French Macarons and I'm starting feel a lot more confident about my skills.

It helps that I have a food geek for a BF. I've been surrounded by people who complain that my food is too fancy. I am a food geek. I have been ever since the early 80s when dad and I found Jeff Smith. The town that I live in has a growing reputation for being a foodie destination with that and wine being the chief topics of conversation. And maybe chocolate. That might be the next big micro thing after craft beers. At any rate, in general the people of my town are quite enthusiastic. It's in my private life that I find resistance to new foods, improved flavors and "complicated" cooking. It's like I am surrounded by so many ex-boyfriends.

You know I am no stranger to opposition. So I press on. Ever on... and the result is an eventual tribe of people with whom I belong. The people who oppose you don't matter. It is the people who look forward to the work that matter. Those are the people who you are working for, the people that I am working for. The critics don't matter.
So if you are a food geek and like to share your creations with your friends or you want to start a blog there is a simple thing for you to know to start. The key to taking good food pictures is that macro setting on your camera.


Add caption

The next thing is natural light. Even if it isn't bright sunlight, which might actually work against you by making hot spots. Natural light and a somewhat dark exposure can be corrected in a photo editor. Get in close to your subject and snap a few angles. This gives you what the pros call a shallow depth of range. It puts the focus on the food.

Don't be afraid to crop and refocus the frame if there is too much background competing with your subject.

A full plate of food doesn't need a backdrop. But what if you have just one item or a stack of the same item that needs a little boost? I found this blog, www.dessertsforbreakfast.com/ and fell in love with Stephanie's photos. She is not a pro photographer in the sense that she was trained and is well paid for the work. It's something that came out of the need to illustrate what she was writing.


All of the photos on her site are hers. And they are fabulous. Take a look at her bio and all the places that she has been featured.... quite impressive for someone who has another day job. This is one of her photos.  Her backdrop is the whole or raw product used to create her end product. The focus is still on the macaron. But the background is filled in a bit instead of left stark white. It isn't too busy. And the rose hips and basil don't compete for attention with the macarons.

If you want to learn how to do something, the study the work of those who you admire. You will of course have to make it your own eventually. Studying the works of others gives inspiration but also instruction. See what works and what doesn't work. But above all have fun.

And don't give your detractors and critics the power to take away the joy you find in the things that you love.




The Recipe

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to my German Kitchen. Actually... welcome to my Grandfather's German Kitchen. I'm not sure where this recipe came from, not exactly, and I am not sure when it came from either. All I know is that my Grampa Armin had a bakerei in Hamburg and this was served there. His brother Emil migrated to Dearborn Michigan and began a bakery there. This was one of their offerings.

 

After the Gerbstadt Bakery was sold to the Kresges all I know of the recipe is that Grampa Alfred made it every year in the fall, let it mellow in the freezer and served it for the Winter Holidays. We had it every year along with the gingerbread men that he made from his own cookie cutter form and his plum cake. The last time Grampa made the recipe I was 14. He was too sick to make it when I was 15. While we had talked about him teaching me to bake these old family recipes, he was too tired from his illness to find the patience to teach a prancing horse to bake. When I was 16 he was gone and his recipes were gone.

 

It took a few years to settle things. I'd moved out on my own & started my own business. I did daycare and I wanted to do for them what my grandparents had done for me. When it got time to define our holiday traditions it was the recipe that I was drawn too again and again.

 

The recipe. THE recipe. On the Walton's it was for moonshine. For us, it was this. Holiday Loaf. Yeast cake. Whatever it is called for real no one knows. No one here anyway. The Baldwin sisters kept the recipe with the kind of guarded reverence that Catholics keep the Eucharist in the Tabernacle. As much as we all loved this, we took it and grampa for granted. We did not keep the recipe in reverence. It was buried in leaves of torn pages from magazines, from his cooking journal and other notes written in his own hand and... in German.

 

First step was to apply my high school German to translating. And then to struggle with the metric conversions. I still remember the day mom called me to tell me that she found a box of grampa's papers. I rushed out to get it. And then spent several days nose-to-table working it out. Then the shopping trip. Then the first trial.

 

The recipe is simple. The assembly is mostly simple. The feelings associated with it are complex.

 

My first attempts ballooned with yeast that rose too quickly, burst the thin pastry dough and oozed the sugary egg white onto the pans where it burned blacker than coal. The first was edible if somewhat over browned. It had the taste but not the look of Grampa's recipe. It took many tries. After a few attempts over the course of 3 or 4 years I set it aside. There was something that I did not understand about the mechanics of yeast, sugar, egg and flour in conjunction with humidity and room temperature. It would have to wait as life intervened.

 

When I lived in Marquette in a little apartment, over a store, around the corner from Angeli's Bakery I tried again. I practically lived next to a bakery. How could I not try again with the inspiration begat by the scent of an early Winter morning perfumed with warm yeast and cinnamon? This time it had the shape, the color, the texture that I remembered but it was too sweet. One of the steps consists of blending the nuts and sultanas in a mixture of cinnamon sugar. Too much sugar for the way that golden raisins are processed compared to the early parts of the 20th Century I guess. So I amended the next attempt. And it came out perfectly.

 

Coming back to Traverse City when my mom was ill brought me right back to the loss I felt when Gramma & Grampa were gone. I couldn't bake. Not for a long time anyway. Everything reminded me of them. They were my security when I was growing up a misplaced geek in a sea of athletes. And the recipe was my connection to those very special times of the year when we were all together. It is the time that Life has now decided will be my season of loss. Between the time that mom and dad died I might have made the recipe one more time. After dad died  I made it again.

 

Our Northern cousins invited us to Christmas, our first Christmas without dad. I made this to take because I knew that all of us, having lost our parents and the same special set of grandparents, treasured this rare treat as a connection to them. And I got it right. It was perfect. I still remember how Brian's face lit up when he saw the recipe sitting on the counter. "Is that Grampa's holiday cake?" Best compliment ever. Until someone else said it tastes just like Grampa made it.

 

Since dad has died, today was the first time that I have attempted the recipe. It was the first thing that I promised myself I would make once I had a real kitchen again. Obviously, if you read this post for any length of time you know I broke my own promise. It would seem when you are not yourself, you can not do what you love. So as it is with art it is with baking. It must be that way with anything that you love to do. You just can't do it when you aren't you.

 

Aldi got a shipment of sultanas in a few weeks ago at a price I have not seen in a long time. I snatched two boxes. They have been sitting here for a while reminding me with a cat's dead eye stare that something has to change. In the last few days I have found the energy to do normal "Me" things. Bed lamps unpacked for a good read, the pile of debris at the end of my bed finally is tamed and I sorted through some boxes in the basement. As you saw in the last post, holiday lights are up. So today, knowing that my housemate and I were having people over to play games, I made the recipe.

 

I think I am starting to get my groove back. I can even tell with the way that I am writing that things in my head and my heart are healing. It's only taken 5.5 years to get here.

 

 

If you want the recipe to make yourself it is here at my genealogy blog which I haven't done anything with in ages.

 

Erfreuen Sie!

 

 



I need to do a German themed blog

 

 

 

This was tonight's dinner. It took 3 days to make. And I am pretty darn excited about how well it turned out even though the marinade was too strong and the rabbit was mostly cooked before it went in the oven to braise. The sauce made it totally edible and was sooooo good!!! I know... tooting my own horn. But the thing is that this was the scariest thing I've made in a few months.

 

 

The spätzle was out of a bag. I bought it at ALDI not too long ago and it turned out pretty good. The onion flavor was intense and there were huge pieces of onion in it. Impressive! The carrots were just nuked, buttered and browned a bit with a bit of the gravy before I made the sauce.

 

The rabbit was the best though. Herbs de Provence, Blueberry Lavender Preserves from Food for Thought, and rabbit stock. Yep. I made stock from the leftover trimmings and added that to the braising liquid. And that is just what went into the pan tonight. The marinade was a killer.

 

yeah.... I am way excited about German stuff and I am going to need to have a dedicated blog for that.

 

 

Loving Living in the Future

Again, catching up on some blogs while I am writing out future entries in long form. It isn't a luddite maneuver but a classic delaying technique. It isn't because I don't want to write. I am writing a lot. It is because I am trying to gather material so that I can post regularly, have meaningful articles to share and get my head back into the blogging game. I delay for a purpose this time instead of delay out of fear. HUGE difference. Huge! (Did you read that in Matt Smith's voice? I hope you did. I wrote in in ;) ) At any rate, one of the delays in regular posts is due to a technical issue...

I am way over booked on material for the art blog as I have changed my policy to reflect an understanding about art that should really have been very obvious to me. And that is drawing a lot of attention from this blog. Though perhaps it should not. Still working that out. The other delay is that I found an article in one of those blogs I was catching up on about an app for the Windows Touch (also available in a desktop version) that I have not activated since I got the laptop last Fall. Which reminds me; I need to get a check up.

The app is Evernote. It is similar to Goggledocs in that it is a form of cloud computing. However it is a little easier for me to use and it syncs better across a variety of platforms. Or so the claims go. I like Googledocs. I am just not sure I want a lot in the Clouds. My aspirations are all ready there an we see how well that works for me. What I did not know when I activated the app was that it was cloud computing. I thought that I was adding something to my hard drive. Silly me. I should know better; after all most all that we do is going to be done over the internet and not on hard data storage in a few short years. I guess this is how we are going to live with it.

At any rate Evernote is pretty damn good. And it comes with a fun little partner called skitch which is a separate download/activation. I had hoped that it would let me do my own quick meme kinds of work but I think that I have to have premium service for that. I do like the Skitch/Evernote combo a lot.

So much so that I might consider entering the cloud once the laptop sees the Geek Squad. Something I did with the antivirus software didn't work. So I need to get things cleaned up and then we will be good to go. Which will keep the spammers out of my status updates. But it will also allow me to be a far more prolific writer.

That being said I think that delay in regular posting is worth it. And I will have to make a confession here. One of my worst habits as a writer is buying a notebook(or 4) for every project, stashing the notebook somewhere and losing track of the stash (losing my brain) and thus losing the project. A notebook for every project is a sound organizational concept. Otherwise I would have a billion and a half ideas crammed into a dozen or so notebooks like da Vinci's and it would be as indecipherable. There would be a grocery list along side a materials list written over with a quote from Doctor Who; a random name scribbled in the bottom margin of either a real or imaginary person with no indication of which it would have been; a random rant about politics; a note to myself to tweak a recipe and of course ramblings in German language which is either me trying to get a Matthias Reim lyric out of my head/into my head or testing out an insult to throw at someone all dashed about on pages and pages of sketches.... I'd look like a madwoman. Or..... some art history student in the future would go mad trying to figure out what the hell "Verdammt ich lieb dich ich lieb dich nicht" has to do with a Hungarian needlework flower. The answer would be nothing. But how is that poor student to know? And if I can't decipher my own intentions when I look at those pages a mere 4 months later.... well....

And how do you carry an entire high school career's worth of notebooks to every coffee shop or shady park and not look like a complete idiot? You don't. And the strain on your back and shoulders is just not worth it. That is why, I think, most writers and persons like da Vinci kept to home like hermits on a mountain in Tibet. It's too much bother to cart all that about. Much easier to stay home and scribble away in your hovel amassing stacks and stack of ledgers. Of course it is also very likely that mountain of collected works will topple and crush you to death while 47 cats mill about waiting for the supper that would never come.... but I digress. Again.

Enter Evernote. I love living in the future. Evernote can be an entire high school, college, graduate, post grad and doctorate career's worth of notes all on your laptop because it is stored in this mysterious nebula of information. It promises productivity increases. But first I need to really understand how the whole thing works. Should be a short learning curve. And then Geekdom will be off an running with lots of good content. Or... I will get lots of practice writing.

One word of caution though. Evernote is a cloud service. It does require really good security protection. And you need to keep up on your updates. You can encrypt things so that if you are working on the next big novel, the one that makes JK Rowling uneasy about her position in literary history, you can keep it safe for yourself until it is ready for a publisher. If you don't encrypt it could be a disaster. Evernote warns you of such. And I suggest taking the warning seriously. If spammers can get through a firewall they can sift through the clouds to steal your seeds of genius.

Living in the future takes a little getting used to. And it comes with as many pitfalls as living in the past. In the end though it must all be worth it if it helps us each to realize our potentials.

Foodie Fun

Researching German foods lately. This means that there is little time for meto blog. But I will tell you that the concept of being able to have a full kitchen to use this Summer is turning my tummy 7 kinds of excited. Here is what I anticipate making over the next few weeks:

Pretzel Bread and Rolls
Red Cabbage with Fennel and Apple
Red Cabbage Slaw
Rustic Plum Tart
Wurst and Kase Rouladen: which is Cold cuts, cheese and spices rolled in pastry dough, sliced and baked on a cookie sheet. Yum! Yum!
Pork Sausage with Leek Relish as sliders: imagine that on a pretzel roll. THAT'S! what I'm talking about.
Sultana Struedel
Lebkuchen
and sauerbraten


I can not wait. I am most excited to try out the science of the salt bath prior to baking a pretzel and to see if I can get a tenderly crisp slaw that is vinegary, a little peppery and leaves some sweetness in your mouth. Oh... and the making of my own pork sausage mix after seeing somethings that Chef Robert Irvine has done on Restraunt Impossible.

There is also a product called Quark. I know. My first thought was that someone finally chopped up that little Ferengi bastard. But... no. Quark is a soft, creamy sweet cheese that can be used for desserts or herbed dipping sauces. To me it looks like the same consistency as a homemade whipped cream. Before I can try it I will have to find it. Apparently we don't have real German deli's or grocers in Michigan any more. Somehow that does not surprise me. Sad yes. Surprised no.

I promise pictures.
And many foodie entries.

New Profile

My least favorite writing assignments in school were the autobiographies. We did so little living that it seemed stupid to write them. Really they consisted of the most basic information that looked remarkably like your basic obit rush job by an outsider who just had to get something on paper. You know, to meet an editoria deadline. With the recent (4 years ago) slew of dating profiles I wrote, one would think it would be easier to come up with something fresh and original that was more than DOB and DOD. It is not.

I think that is why I left my profile so empty with my online game. I let the blog and my online rooms speak for me. And let's not forget that I can be a scintilating conversationalist... if (and that's a big IF) you do not ask me to use small words and ignore the burning social questions of the day. Today I am exploring another online social site. And I find that I have to have a good profile filled out. AGAIN. So I wrote one. AGAIN.

I wanted it to be different than anything that I have written before. And I wanted it to be different from anything someone has read before. I do not know if I will keep with this site. This is just an exploratory foray, a first contact, if you will. I'm looking for better graphics. And quite honestly, I want a leadership council that stands behind its people, for its people and listens to its people. That might be a bit much to ask. As with all things it starts with a basic profile. I did like what I wrote. So just in case I don't keep it. I am keeping the profile here for posterity's sake.

Yet another blank page; yet another profile to fill out and yet... words fail me. Again. All I can say about myself is that I am not the Most Interesting Person in the World nor am I a tittering church mouse hiding in the shadows waiting to scoop up what others have discarded.

I would love to be the Woman of Mystery. As it is, I tend to leave people scratching their heads. Most are quietly amused. Some will take stock of their lives to figure how to avoid the convoluted & dizzying maze I've presented. Then, there is the Handful of Others who run screaming for the woods as if the Tasmanian Devil is on the loose.

I've often thought that I could pull off Strong Female Lead in a Police Drama. Smart, funny, observant, keen on the details and good at finding the dirt bags under the flowery words, as I grew up on Sherlock Holmes, Police Consulting Detective would have been a good job for me. I would have a hard time shooting the Bad Guys and would most likely have either shot or slept with Castle by now. Show's over. So being Beckett is outta the question.

I've got mad Caroline Ingalls skills. From a long line of Pioneers, Refugees and Economic Adventurers, I have great domestic skills that can travel: Conestoga wagon, vardo, mini van... I would prefer the colorful vardo. The trouble with that is that ya really need the Charles Ingalls to go with that. And I have not got Chuck.

I am a Mild Mannered Reporter. Well, Mild Mannered Blogger for a Minor (read minuscule) Metropolitan (in our city councils' wet dreams) Blog is pretty accurate. I write on the geeky topics that fascinate me, mini journal about the Grand Social Experiment I've conducted in which I chose to be Extroverted rather than Introverted which, in hindsight, required more theory before implementation. Oh well. I write about my art, life observations, family history, social commentary and in some small way I am hoping to topple the music industries stance on maintaining geographic borders in an age where technology and desire have created a true global economy. In other words not only am I trying to make Matthias Reim fans. I want to buy the f***ing music in the States! It's a down load! How can their be an issue with shipping? EMI I'm looking at you.

Adventuress. That is one title that will apply to me. Hopefully within the coming year as I travel to the Fatherland to unearth the rest of my German Ancestors and a few Austro-Hungarian ones. (Not literally. Though with my luck I will find a vampyr some Dark & Stormy Night under a Full Moon with Spooky Fog. Zoinks! & Ruh-roh!) While visiting the cousins I will hunt the elusive Complete Discography of Matthias Reim in every dingy record store I can find between Regensburg and Dresden (because Europeans honor tradition instead of paving over paradise in the name of progress) while sampling the delicacies found only in the German Bakerei. Most likely, I will shoot several rolls (digital equivalent) of architectural details, scenery and do some plenn aire painting. There will not be time for drinking lagers and whatnot. But lots of authentic chocolate I hope.

True to the Gypsy heritage that lies latent in our family blood line, I love being bare foot, wearing bright colours, keep my own style, read Tarot (I just collect the cards for the art), dance when it is least appropriate and have a wild and vivid imagination. I am mostly German so I have all those nifty German traits that make being a Geek Uber Geeky. Such as? Well, for one, the ability to fixate with dogged (hunting & retriever breeds) focus on one thing to collect obsessively. I already have everything that Sting has done... except the new Back to Bass album as I am currently poor as a Gypsy & too honorable a geek to steal. I also have the Uncanny Ability to sit at a research desk without food, water and potty breaks for long periods of time. After all, as Dr. Jones says, 90% of archaeology is done in the library.

That is about it for me: Artist, Writer, Geek and Smart Ass. The whole kit-n-caboodle. So....

What's in your profile?

Baby Steps

I don't know what it is that keeps sending me into such a sticky quagmire of self doubt. But I haz it again. And this time it is a little more crippling than before. In part this is due to the fact that I did not plan any further ahead in my art field than getting Dad to admit that I can be an artist and that people want what I've got to sell. I didn't make a plan for that. How can you not? By getting caught up in the emotional need to have satisfaction and approval and not looking at the practical.

And even that isn't right. I had a plan to sell my designs and products associated with them, namely my colelction of 600 rubber stamp designs as either red, wood mounted rubber stamps or the new fangled clear acryllic ones. But I did not make any plans to sell the fine art. Economy tanks and the craft industry kinda back tracked so the stamp thing is not viable. That means that I need to sell the fine art.

I do not have a plan for that. The fine art is the stuff that resulted from playing with the stamps and techniques that I had to learn to be able to market the rubber. I never intended to sell the physical work. The canvases are like journals detailing the things that worked, and to be honest, didn't work. They were the inspiration board cum design notebooks that kept my walls from feeling all naked and cold and junk.

But that is what I am going to have to make a plan for. I have no training in that. I know how to sell rubber stamps. I do not know how to sell me. And so the first step was to show the shrink.

No anxiety. She wondered why. Simple. She is an easy mark. So is the boyfriend. They kinda have to be nice about it. The tough part is showing it to people that fall into the following categories: Who Needs Art?It Doesn't Put Food on the Table, Abolished the Public Funding for all Art Endeavors, Art Isn't Real Work, and the I'm A Jock You're Weird I Don't Care About Your Crap categories. So my next step is to take it into work and show some of the people who seem surprised to find out that I am an artist and a trekkie after working with me for 3 years.

The Coversation Starter falls into a category somewhere between the It Doesn't Put Food on the Table and the Art isn't Real Work. The Conversation Starter is a hard working man with a good heart, full of practicality. So even though he is interested in seeing what I've done, I am still rather scared to do so. I know I have to get used to rejection. But I also need to not expect it from every single person that I meet. That is just the Pavlovian conditioning in my family that I have to overcome. And the Conversation Starter will at least be kind about it. Sir Knight? Hmmm... well things are improved in that category but I do not believe that the improvement merits seeking out the attention. As far as others go... I do kinda have a stacked deck. I know a lot of the girls are going to like what I do because they always like the cards they get from me.

So I go out to take my own advice this week... Be Bold. Be Strong. Step Forward and meet the World because it isn't going to come looking for you.

Macaroons!!!

OMG! I warned you that I was going to ad a monetization feature. I should have headed my own warnings. The first ad they send me is for macaroons like the ones I saw on unwrapped! Oy and double veh! I love macaroons. How can you not love coconutty goodness?!?!?!

It's one of those simple foodie things I want to make but that unreasonably scares me to death. And now I get to look at this ad?

And what kind of macaroon do I have to be to decide to enable a new edit feature for my blog? I was barely used to the old one. Techonophobe trembles.

So here is the post testing new edit feature.

Effect without a cause

or is it just wishful thinking that has me wondering what is up with the world?

I've been rather on again off again in regard to e-dating and the whole social experiments thing as you well know. For the most part it has been one episode of 3s Company after another. I haven't learned a lot outside of what I already knew: God/the Universe/Fate has a sense of humor. Men know themselves as well as women do and that isn't a lot. We are all a bunch of chickens when it comes to relationships. And then, there is the rare occurrence that baffles me completely.

Using a fake name here to save my hide from further pointless chewing, we'll call the individual in question "Teom".

A couple of months ago I got a bunch of emails from guys named Teom. One stood out in particular as being very interested and very affectionate in his correspondence. Unfortunately due to scheduling issues I haven't gotten to meet him. That is not so unusual. It happens a lot. And on my end mostly because I go through periods where I realize a. there is a real life Teom that I am interested in and anyone else is just for passing time and b. I question if I even have the ability to incorporate a guy into my life and c. email is boring after a while. Realization A is the greatest reason that nothing goes any where. All the other Teoms and all the other everybody Else's just don't compare to real life Teom. So what happened is this:
Real life Teom was getting closer and closer to making up his mind about what he wanted. And email Teom's emails were getting as frequent and interesting as real life Teom. Real life Teom and I suddenly and unexpectedly reached an impasse in negotiations. And then email Teom stopped emailing. It's been ages since I've had meaningful communication with either.

Last week I ran into real life Teom. Cordial, convivial and conversational, discussions resumed the normality that had been lacking. Oh, make no mistake there is no passion in the conversation and there is no further negotiating with real life Teom. There were no veiled or unveiled flirtations just good, honest conversation. The very next day email Teom sent the traditional morning offline text. This morning my inbox gave me his special brand of prose. Coincidence?

I'll tell you, the quanta tells me there is no such thing as coincidence. Yet the mystical ways of the cosmos tell me there are. What to believe? If there is no such thing as coincidence then the Teoms are one in the same. And yet, I find that hard to believe. The character in the email and the character in life are dissimilar to the point of being able to disprove the coincidence theory. Yet one Teom emails after declaring a truce with the other Teom...

Reason says that the picture on the profile doesn't match real life Teom. But I've helped a girlfriend built a fake profile to catch a cheater. It is not out of the realm of possibility that a fake profile might be the mode by which a lost opportunity is recovered in much the same way that programming patches recover lost data.

Of course, as is always possible when dealing with the mystical side of life, I may have simply had the wrong Teom in my sites from the beginning and settled on real life Teom because he doesn't live several hours away. What do the cards say? Nothing helpful in the clarity department. Only confirming my hope that I don't have to be alone forever. And no... not a word about how to incorporate anyone else into my life. The only thing the cards have to say is Communicate, forgive, focus on goals and everything falls into place. Yes, logic and friends say the same thing. And no... I don't know why I spent 18.00 on a deck of cards to be told what my friends tell me for free.

Oh wait yes I do. Because I want a different answer than Communicate, Forgive, Focus on goals an everything will fall into place. I want the cards to lay out a step by step process for how to get what I want. And provide an iron glad guarantee that I am not, so to speak, barking up the wrong tree.

But I will tell you this much that I know for sure. There is no way that I am ever going to make any assumptions about real life Teom. No guessing. No hopeless holding my breath. If he changes his mind he's going to have to be frank, forward and as direct as a slap in the face about what he wants. His subtly, more than anyone elses goes right over my head. And whatever I do with my life in the mean time is my choice. As things stand now real life Teom hasn't asked for a hold while deciding on a purchase. If I decide to go some where beyond email with the other Teom, he can't complain because as far as I know there is no chance with real life Teom. And if they are one in the same I'm going to, most likely, be pissed on a level no one but me will understand.

Signs?

What makes an omen an omen?
What makes a sign a sign?
What is synchronicity and what is borrowing trouble?


Superstition, signs and wonders, omens and myths are made when a series of circumstances present themselves in conjunction with events that can be controlled or observed by a less than objective observer. In ancient texts, we are told that the gods bestow favor under banners called blessings. They administer punishment under curses. Or do we just think they do?

Religious friends tell me that we can not count on signs and wonders because they are constructs of the mind not messages from the divine. The opinion is justified in the explanation that early man misunderstood causal relationships. That because lightening which comes from the sky strikes a dry and highly flammable hut does not mean God hates you. It means that you are a moron who waited too long to re-thatch your dwelling. Yet this type of non-related incident is the foundation of many myths and legends. We are told that only the uneducated look for omens as roadsigns indicating good or bad choices. My pagan friends rely on signs and wonders, look for answers in the alignment of stars and in the random selection generators packaged as Tarot decks. They look for confirmation that they are on the right path.
It may be a human tendency or a failing. And in the earliest forms of our scriptural heritage signs and wonders abound. God uses signs throughout the Hebrew, Christian and Muslim texts to confirm His word through his prophets. Moses depended on signs in the Sinai desert the same way we look at Map quest to know where we are going or sailors use the stars to guide them at sea. The concern that the religious have is that you turn your power over to someone else (a fortune teller, seer etc...) to determine your direction and not God. Many psychologists think that it is cheap and easy way to avoid being accountable for your actions. So how do you know if there are signs and wonders or if you're just being wishy-washy? I don't know.

I have been attending to a part of my life I've neglected for the last month. Mostly because I am tired of that bone weary, soul-crushing loneliness I mentioned in the previous post. But also because it is something I should know. I should know what my type of guy is. And I don't. I thought I did. And at this point the only thing I can really say is that I like guys that are older than me. But I don't know what my true type is. So I signed up for a site which was going to get me more out of the house time than the traditional dating site. And it is working. I've gone out at least 8 times with one yielding a second date. What does that have to do with signs and wonders? Only that each time I have gone out there has been what I can only describe as a sign, a dark sign... the kind of sign that says "Turn back now!"
The first sign that I was asking for trouble or at the very least had found a way to displease the Big Guy? Started a period. Period lasted long enough to stop things before they started, get home and gt a shower. The last sign? Sister Anne Monica walked into the coffee shop. How do I know it was a sign? Honestly, non of us can know for sure. But the simple fact that I was in a coffee shop meeting with a friend I hoped would be a hook up and that Sr. Anne Monica hasn't even been in town for 25 years. But today she shows up in my regular coffee shop? That is hardly an accident. Or is it?
Sting and other New Agers would call it synchronicity. The serendipitous arrangement of events that allegedly proves there is an intelligence in the cosmos. So is it a coincidence? Or am I looking for reasons to do or not do? Am I looking for some thing outside of myself to make my choices so that I don't have to be responsible? I don't know. I just wonder if the camp that doesn't believe that God uses signs and wonders to communicate with us can honestly say that Sr. Anne Monica was not a sign. I mean come on. She hasn't been here in 25 years! She left a little after my class ruined Sr. Melvina. If that isn't a sign I don't know what is.
Of course I don't know if the sign is to tell me that I'm looking at the wrong people, casting too broad a net or not even supposed to be concerned about this because God wants me to be alone. And that only because guys are distracting enough that I won't accomplish any of my goals or be available for the uses God has in mind. Fine. But he better tell me what the hell I'm supposed to be doing. Because right now I can't find enough to weird, archaic or super specialized topics to keep my mind off of guys. I don't think its the biological clock issue either because I don't want kids.
I just want to know if these are signs I can take to the betting table.

an omen?

I made a date. And I am waiting for him to show up while I am engaged in my writing projects. My hope is that he is not out of my league. Like so many things, everything looks great on paper. Our communications have been lively, exciting an entertaining. And like so many of my other initial meetings... God has some thing to say about the course I have set...

Sister Ann Monica just walked into the coffee shop.

oops

So something in the neural processors is wonky. Verta warned that we were in for some heavy energy with all these frakking planets infringing on earth's territory. But I didn't think that it was going to be this bad. I, apparently, am capable only of Watson styled blunders in assessing value to circumstantial evidence and am completely devoid of imagination to see beyond the obvious.

Dashed off a quick this has been your last communication to Sir Lee. I mean really... asking me to make plans and then not even the briefest of S.O.S to divert my course. Rude. Blowing off my hi while you are online. Rude. And then, and here is where the wicket gets really sticky and not in a good "Ha! I just won this stupid English yard game you vagabond!" way, he replies. "I haven't been online to let you know." Really?

I'm technophobic, couldn't program my way out of an open paper bag. Don't know the first thing about processor capacity and the dirty little secrets about constructing a mother board, or if they are even called that anymore. But I certainly can read. I know how to navigate that site. It's been a while since I fell off the turnip truck but... if your picture shows up at top of the screen with the dark greek writing that says "ONLINE NOW!!!" then you are ONLINE NOW !!!!! Sheesh, I know I was born blonde but puh-leeze.

i mean he could have been serious. Some people have their messenger platforms autosign when the computer fires up. Maybe he wasn't cruising the site. But... he was online. And since he is familiar with jurisprudence you'd think he'd know better. Then again... because they are familiar with church law you'd think pastors and priests would know better than to fornicate. And he is a guy. Who knows... maybe his blonde goes all the way to his bone marrow. Yutz.

Next knight up for scrutiny...

hailing frequencies closed

damn, I hate losing trek buddies.
Even if the farewell was extremely well written and peppered with Starfleet jargon it still hurts.

And ya know what... that is what I like about TV. If your characters disappear because the network cancelled the show there is always DVD. Long live Firefly and Captain Tightpants. Books. I like books for the same reason. The friends you make within those pages last as long as the book does.

Yeah... I wasn't in love. But I expected better behavior.

So there have been a handful of knights to register for competition in the month that I have had this new site profile. Of those, there were only two to make the cut. The first we'll call Sir Lee as it turns out he is and has made me as well. He had all the makings of a fine companion what with being attracted to the trek thing, my German figure and capacity for imagination. Seemed a match made in heaven for lonely geek like me. I mean geez.. who the fuck ever wants a trek geek? The second is a rather laid back individual for whom I can find no pun. He will be known henceforth as Sir, well... I guess Sir Knight. Nothing stabby comes to mind and really they are almost all knights in shining armor/amore... whatever.
I partially described Sir Lee. I guess the best part of that very short-lived arrangement was, from my perspective, that no one that cute and that compatible has crossed my path in like forever. Even Matt couldn't do the whole trek reference conversation like Sir Lee could, which takes me back to Marquette days... So anyway I thought this was going to be a great little deal with the benefit of relieving some pon farr symptoms. we were supposed to meet on two occasions both of which he had to cancel with profuse apologies. We made up for it with a few long conversations. Last week he wants to talk on a Monday. And here is where things get, in the vernacular, wonky. I don't do Mondays. These guys have lives of their own, things for which I am told up front I must take second chair. The only thing that I ask is to watch Castle with my Castlechat friends in peace. I invite them all to join us. I apologize for it even though I should not. Its one night for one hour where I am not available. He said he'd see me online after the show. Nothing. No response to the one shout out I sent. We did not meet for the date we planned later in the week and I was left wondering. So tonight, as I am compiling data for the Knight who is out of running and now (probably) totally peeved to know he has been written about even if generically, I saw that Sir Lee was online and on our site. I dropped a "hi there". He got offline.
It is rude. And I thought, uncharacteristic of him. He dropped out of chat but was still on the site. I can smell an avoidance tactic a mile away. I also have enough brains to make sure to engage the cloaking device before a vessel picks me up on long range sensors. Ha! So I've deleted him from my contact list.
The thing is, while I knew that this was not a long term anything. It was just fun. And it was fun while it lasted. I still want to cry. This was supposed to be a confidence building exercise; take what attention the originating knight gave, use it to get over the crappy programming and take the next step in development that I some how missed in high school to find the confidence in my womanhood that I have in my geekhood. So WTF went wrong? And why the fuck do I want to cry about it? I mean geez, it isn't like he was going to be the one. I know better than that for many reasons. Did I somehow think that being a trek buddy meant he would treat me with more deference than the average chick you can blow off? Must have. I'm an idiot for it too. HELLOOO! Ferengi! It isn't like Trek doesn't have its share of ass wipes: Q, Devoni Rahl, the Ferengi, the other sons of Mohg, the guy with the telepathic mind tricks, Shinzon. The universe is replete with rudeness; what made me think that I was isolated, even in this instance? Oh yeah, my facile belief in solidarity and kindredness.
Stupid.
So now what do I do about the other Sir Knight. I've invited him to the company Christmas party which probably violates some unwritten rule of the casual hook up planet that means I will be summarily executed because I have neither a spiffy cable knit sweater nor an angry ship's captain with a Prime Directive to back me up. A shame if that happens. While I thought that our first contact was a bit tepid, we did go out, had a grand time and he asked for a second date. Now it's a matter of playing dueling day planners to find a day when that can happen. This isn't going to be a long term thing either. Not what I am looking for. I don't know me well enough in this arena to be able to deal with that. I don't even know that this knight is really into me or if I'm the only person receptive to him at the moment. No matter. It is what it is. And if it fizzles I can honestly say it isn't going to stick in my craw the way Sir Lee does.
This isn't e-harmony. I'm not going to find the love of my life. But I would like to find a little more respect here than what I get from the family.

As social experiments go I guess I am finding out, by leaps and bounds, what I am willing to deal with and what I'm willing to photon torpedo without asking questions first. It wasn't the goal. The goal of this experiment was to find that I am not averse to the concept of intimacy or relationships. Granted it is early to know for certain. But it looks to me like I either have a long way to go to find the answers or I already know the answer to that and simply refuse to come to terms with it.
Ooh lucky me if its the last.

Social Experiment

Relationship Woes, as I said in a previous post, are fodder for the funny. I haven't catalogued the experiments that have taken place over the last two weeks as I am smack in the middle of testing hypothesis. And it will take a while to analyze the data since I have 8 test subjects to compare to the control set. All I can say at this point is: damn. I should have started this sooner.

I am not prepared to publish even the earliest observations, in or out of context, despite the funny that I have found in the process. This is the kind of thing that could, in theory, take a lifetime to observe, hypthesize, test, retest and analyze. It is possible that there is no answer to my question, no one outcome that will make my theory stand with the kind of absolute certainty that would allow me to make any kind of a concrete action plan. Now I know why these kinds of things happen in middle and highschool. I also understand how distracting this could be. And I think I am not nearly so frustrated with my sister and her best friend. Oh I still resent the earpiercing wails from the back seat that ruined my hearing before a band evr got the chance to do so. But I understand.
I have come to the inescapable conclusion that one's puruits are dictated by ones interest and the degree of passion behind one's interests. This would account for the lateness of my entry into this particular field of study. And no amount of anthropology study is going to give me a head start on developing my conclusion. This is most definately a case in which Heissenberg is laughing his ass off from the Great Beyond as the observer is as much the subject of the observation as the target subjects. Thus, I change both the process and the results. I just realized that this also means that I may never find the conclusion... [shakes fists] Damn you Heissenberg! And I hope Mozart knocks you down a flight of stairs if you keep smacking his should like that... it just isn't that funny.
It's a little funny. But not that funny.