I hate the sound of my voice

Have you ever lost your cell phone in your house and borrowed another phone to call it? Sometimes you're still listening for the ringing when all the ringing runs out and you catch a snippet of your own voice on your out-going message. The same thing happens when you have some reason to speak into a microphone. Whenever I have to speak into a microphone I have a hard time focusing on what I'm supposed to be saying because I'm fascinated with the sound coming out of the speakers. Really? I walk around sounding like that? And people put up with me?

Um, that's not really what I'm talking about. I'm just not sure if I like my writing voice. Unlike hearing a recording or an amplification of my speaking voice, there is no way for me to know what my written voice is like to other people. Most things I write sound good in my head as I'm writing them, but later I just don't care for it. When I read blogs I like I think, "Oh Schmutzie, Fluid Pudding, Lady Linoleum, and cake wrecks Jen--I like you. You sound funny and interesting and I think we have stuff in common." But even though I am me--I just don't feel that way about my own writing.

That's right, I feel that I have nothing in common with......MYSELF.

I think I sound like a big dork, and sometimes like a big pretentious dork. Ug.

Country Cooking form South Austin: Baked Ziti (Farce Ziti Double) OR Alone in the Kitchen with String Cheese

Ingredients:
What ever is in your refrigerator or pantry four days before Christmas
An itunes library full of the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Lady Gaga's new album

Step 1 -Decide that going to the store to obtain enough materials to cook a meal would be tantamount with giving up on all of your convictions as you are unemployed and not up for leaving the house more than once in any day.

Step 2- Call your boyfriend's stepmother to ask what she puts in her baked ziti instead of ricotta. Discuss how much not having a job sucks, but how the economy is bound to turn up and you will both be gainfully employed within a matter of weeks.*

Step 3- Turn up volume on computer so that it can be heard in kitchen, but be sure to run back any time Lady Gaga comes on. Disregard feelings of neighbors about having to hear your music warbled through the wall.

Step 4- Boil your pasta. Baked ziti usually contains something small and tubular, but you have the choice between little shells, bowties, linguine that is infested with pantry bugs, or spaghetti. You choose little shells. Test occasionally--burn mouth each time.

Step 5- While pasta is boiling unwrap and slice lengthwise your string cheese snacks. While slicing prepare mentally for boyfriend's disgust, amusement, or amazement that you have used string cheese thusly.

Step 6- Drain pasta and add the rest of your tub of cream cheese even though boyfriend's stepmother said sour cream.

Step 7- Add two handfuls of whatever else you have in the fridge.

Step 8- Consider stopping here and having mac and cheese for dinner.

Step 9- Eat at least five spoonfuls of this just to make sure--different spoon each time.

Step 10- Remember that boyfriend is no fan of mac and cheese and add bottle of Ragu.

Step 11- Pour into Santa Claus baking dish that you got for free when you bought boyfriend some Dolche and Gabbana cologne four years ago.

Step 12- Look up on recipezaar.com how long people cook baked ziti.

Step 13- Skip the Lady Gaga song that's just come on your computer.

*neither of you believes this

Last Day Together

On my last day with her, her hands were really bleeding. Her arms too. All of the skin on her arms seemed to be only held together by the variety of bandages. I had to take care of the bleeding because I was scared of her blood. I took out some hydrogen peroxide, some gauze, and some tape. I placed her hand over the rail and pulled up a chair. I hurt her, I know that I did. I told her that I knew it hurt. I told her to pretend she was getting a manicure. The tape had to be wound around every finger, the gauze had to go all the way around her knuckles. I couldn't bring myself to tackle her arms. They could not take any more tape. So I put socks over her arms. To protect myself...to protect the next woman.

It was actually a beautiful time together. I spoke to her from my heart. No, I spoke to her through my heart. I thanked her for letting me be there. I apologized for not being good at understanding her. I reminded her that she could let go at any time. We had no business keeping her here. I did not, as other people have claimed to, know that she would choose the next day. I was too worried about trying to find someone to cover Tuesday's night shift.

The next day was my day off, but I stopped by to drop off some oxycodone. Then, of course, I came by later that night to call and tell people what had happened. I had to witness the hospice nurse destroy all of her medicine, I had to put the baby to sleep.

Car Battery fail, Hummus win

I like to say that if i have one virtue, its patience. I liked the idea of that Boiling Points show that used to be on MTV because I thought I would win the money if I was ever on it. Virtues have flip-sides and in my case the flip side of patience is procrastination. Today this was a problem in the shape of my car battery. I've known I needed a new car battery but its been starting okay until today. I was supposed to pick up the little boy I babysit from his pre-school coop and the car was a not interested in going anywhere. And the worst babysitter of the year award goes to...PurpleBecca!!!

Then I made some hummus out of stuff I had in the pantry. It turned out being pretty good, if a little non traditional. I just put this stuff in my little food processor:

1 can garbanzos
2 cloves garlic
about a tablespoon chili powder
about 2 tablespoons olive oil

Now I'm eating it on saltines because if I don't have any tahini you know I don't have pitas.

Everything I Learned in High School Science

Do you remember everything you learned in High School Science? Really? What about equilibrium constants? What about the difference between mutualism and commensalism? What about electromagnetic waves?

I'm taking the Science 8-12 texes test on Thursday as another step toward becoming a certified teacher. This test is so comprehensive that I have no idea if I've been studying for it effectively. As a Cell/Molecular Bio degree holder I thought I would be pretty good on bio and chem, but I'm realizing that there is a good amount of chemistry that I haven't seen since intro chemistry 6 years ago. I've spent most of the last month or two trying to re-learn physics, but now that its down to crunch time I realized that I better study the other stuff as well.

As much as studying can be a drag its actually different this time because I'm thinking in the back of my head how I would teach a lesson on each subject. I'm really excited about the prospect of being able to teach science to some young people.

Once upon a time, I was 15 years old. I lived with my mother in a little white house with decorative wrought iron bars on the window and a big swing in the front yard. When she asked me to go on a drive with her I was not surprised because we often spent weekend afternoons aimlessly wandering until something fun or entertaining presented itself. On this day, however, she seemed to have a certain destination in mind. I said little in the car because I'm the kind of person who says nothing when I don't know what to say. Being in the car is such an intense and forced form of intimacy. So I probably just sang along to the radio while we travelled down the farm-to-market roads and city streets that my mom had memorized to avoid ever having to get on the highway. Finally, we pulled into a trailer park, or rather a "manufactured home community".

"Look at the trailer trash." Demanded my mother.
"Hmm." I said.
"Hello little trailer trash boy." Said my mom, through the closed window to a kid playing ball in the street. I may have laughed a little. I may have made a joke about being there to pick up her new boyfriend. I was 15, and I wanted to fit in. Even with my mother.
"I think I know that girl from school." I said, motioning to a girl to my left, who I probably did not really recognize.
"Well now you know that she lives in a trailer."

I didn't know why my mother was being like this. I always thought that she was so open minded and understanding. I thought that she had taught me how to empathize. Whereas other adults in my life would talk about people behind their backs, my mom would talk TO people. She never seemed put off, intimidated, or disgusted by anyone. I was an idealistic teenager and I had always assumed that she was right there with me. I was getting upset (I had never been angry at this point in my life). When we had completed the circle of the streets through the community and turned out I meekly said, "These people aren't trailer trash. They're just people who happened to live in trailers."

She turned to me with an emotion that I did not fully understand, "That's what I wanted to hear you say. That's why we're here. I'm proud of you. Lets go get a hamburger."

We went and got some food and didn't really talk about the little field trip. I didn't understand it. Its strange to think about how back then she even had any question in her mind that I would have some prejudice against people who lived in trailers, but I probably did. A suburban housing development can be a very isolating thing. All of the houses around you are so much like yours that you forget that not everyone in the world lives in a little white house with wrought iron window bars.

Mom must have realized how much of the world I was missing out on. Thank God I had her.

A Fresh Start

I've tried to maintain a knitting blog for over a year now, but I'm just not a prolific enough knitter/crocheter to come up with interesting posts frequently. So I'm moving, branching out, and prepared to enter the over-sharing culture of the personal blog! This is going to be fun! I'll get to talk about how cute my dog is without having knitted something as an excuse for a post. I can discuss how much I love glam rock and I won't even have to try to stretch to tie it in to fiber art. I'm excited.

Thanks for making the leap...real post to follow.