Wednesday, November 16, 2005

What is imagined and what is concrete?

TA Sam posted my flash movie in his blog, if you're interested in it. He also posted LeeAnn's, for those of you who know her. He picked ours because they were the most abstract, so don't feel bad for Courtney's drumming or Marin's neocortical columns.

In other news, I turned in the "Marisa pretends to be a vegan" article today. I got a little snippy with LeeAnn in the article (at one point I caved on the diet, and she told half the department, which she insists is part of her charm) so I would like to point out how cranky I got when I couldn't eat cheese. I would also like to point out that LeeAnn and I are still on speaking terms even though she read the article this morning.

Tomorrow is hand turkey day. I'm going to have a super AWESOME turkey this year. It's going to be South Park themed, and I (dorkily) made a couple sketches when I was supposed to be doing other homework.

Finally, in wedding news, Matt booked the honeymoon today and I'll be home in a week, so I think we all knows that there will be no more progress made on the wedding plans before Thanksgiving.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Hey, Cara!

Long time no post. I've been posting pretty well on my OpenDiary, umm...diary, and then I thought it would be more productive to post here.

So, this is my latest post from OD, and I'll try to keep up better.

I'm taking a magazine writing class this semester. It's kind of a funny class. The professor alternately spouts her political views and reads to us like kindergarten storytime. It is a highly enjoyable class, although the political talk occasionally makes me uncomfortable, even though I agree with her a lot of the time. She's also a vegetarian who went to UD, so we have a lot in common, but she spent 10 minutes in class yesterday trying to convince us to attend a talk on vaccines and autism, which is a crock. It's not like she comes down on you if you disagree with her, or anything. It's just a little uncomfortable to have a professor oversharing like that. I also have a professor this semester who overshares her personal information. She had to cancel class once because she was sick, and she sent out an email with all the gory details, which was TMI. She'll do the same thing if you send her any information on why you're not in class. She announces it to the whole class. (Marin's family is in town. Ed's on a job interview. Dave has a stomach virus.) I have a pact with Marin to keep her from oversharing behind our backs if one of us is out.

But I digress.

So, for my 4th article, I decided to do a Supersize Me/Nickeled and Dimed type piece about being a vegan. So, I've been vegan for the last two weeks. It ended today, and I cannot tell you how happy I was to eat cheese again. I don't remember missing meat this much when I first became vegetarian, but I never really enjoyed meat. I really enjoy cheese and (to a lesser extent) eggs, so they were harder for me to give up. I also went about the whole thing stupidly the first week, since I didn't start it with a trip to the grocery store, like I should have. Instead, I just cut out anything in my refridgerator or cupboard that contained animal products. That made the diet more about what I could NOT eat than what I could have, which is a bad mindset to get into. Consequently, I've been craving cheese. It also didn't help that it's right after Halloween and there is chocolate everywhere, most of which contains milk. The past few days I think I've overcompensated with plant fats and salt, so I actually think I've been eating worse, even though I"m eating a lot more fruits and vegetables than usual. I couldn't wait for today to come, but I would consider going vegan again. I think I'd have to work on cutting down my dairy consumption first. Substituting things I won't really miss, and then working on cutting down from there. In the meantime, I can start buying cruelty-free dairy and eggs, which should help me cut down, just because I'm incredibly cheap. The other thing that makes this hard is that Matt is coming to visit Saturday (it's been about 6 weeks, and it was just our 4-year anniversary on Tuesday, so I can't wait. Unless he decides to take another internship in CA this summer, which looks doubtful, we'll never have to be apart this long again. I'm looking forward to that.) anyway, it's hard because Matt's not a vegetarian, so I feel like I need the flexibility of being lacto-ovo in order to live happily with him. I'm hoping he can cut down on the meat so he's just eating it 1-2x per week. I don't really intend to cook it more than that. I've never really been comfortable cooking meat. I feel like I can cook chicken, but I don't really like doing it. Of course, I make it almost every time Matt visits me to show him that it's a special occasion. I'm not sure if he's picked up on that. He's a grown man, and he can cook for himself, but I'm betting if he has a choice between eating the meal that's available and cooking something for himself, he'll eat what I put in front of him.

Finally, the wedding update. I got some invitation samples, but I'm not really happy about them. The only one I kind of like came with no writing on it, so it just looks like a piece of paper, which is blah. I wasn't happy with the paper quality on the others. I realize that people are going with lighter papers now to cut down on postage (which is going to go up before the wedding. Great.) but it still just feels cheap to me. I don't know what I'm going to do, but Thanksgiving week will be mecha wedding planning week. My sister is supposedly meeting with the florist and hair and make-up people, so then I'll follow up when I'm home. She was also supposed to meet with the pianist, but that doesn't seem to have happened. That makes me a little nervous. Matt hasn't done any of his jobs, but one should be done tonight, and he says his goal is to have everything else done next week. We'll see. Tonight he's supposed to be finalizing the guest list with his mom. That means that next week he'll be booking the honeymoon and limo and picking out the groomsman wear. None of this should take him more than 5 minutes but he gets all worked up and then he wants me to do it. Well, that's not what he says. He says we should be doing these things together - which means that he wants me to do it. I just have to be firm and tell him he's doing a wonderful job and it makes me so happy that he's doing these jobs. Dresses are ordered and should be in by my birthday. Grandma and Matt's mom are still dress-less, but I doubt they've put any time into looking.

Also, I was a bouncer for Halloween. I bought a black t-shirt and some iron-on letters at Michael's and made a shirt that said "security." I also had a black ribbed hat. I wanted a cowboy hat, but I couldn't find one I liked. It was awesome. I tried to convince Matt to be a bouncer, too, but he wasn't buying it. He said "I have no muscles. You'll look sexy. I'll just look like a dork."