Fischerspooner makes my mind wander...

So, this won't be an original thought, since Blogspot just deleted my post...yarr. But anyway...

As a salesperson, I can always recognize when someone is throwing me a pitch. Usually I play along and strike up a conversation, all the while thinking about how they must think they're so clever....Actually, I usually sell something to them, by flipping their sales tactics around. Chocolate definitely sells itself, and it's a good product for any store. Check out our website! www.chocolatenecessities.com We sell both wholesale and retail. Oh, my name's Ruthie, nice to meet you! Come see me at the store, I'll show you around! Alright, have a great day! etc. [/high pitched femme voice].

Really, everyone is constantly selling themselves. We work hard to create a facade of ourselves, sometimes exaggerating or acting out. We dress ourselves in a way we think will appeal to others. We attempt at humor, and try to adapt to the tastes of potential "buyers" by the things we do and say, and how we do and say them. I see it in myself all the time.

[There is a yellow jacket buzzing around in the bag I just got from Barnes and Noble...I'm not quite sure what to do...]

Tomorrow my brother and I are "entertaining," as it were. We jazzed up the apartment and I got some actual cooking supplies, so I'm going to try and clean and make something relatively edible for a crowd of five...shouldn't be too hard, right? Luis speaks Spanish, English and a little French (he's in Jordan's French class), Jordan speaks a fair amount of French, I speak a little French and a great deal of Spanish, Bart speaks English, and Chelsea speaks a tiny bit of Spanish. It should be fun...

Ahhh fuck.

My last post just got deleted >.<

Homework.

I am extremely tired. blah. Autumn just makes me want to curl up in a ball and eat squash soup by the fire. Our apartment has a fireplace, and it's so nice in the evenings : )

I don't really have much to say right now, I have to make my mind think about Anthropology.

A Twist of Fate

When I was two years old, two Chadian men stopped my parents in N'djamena. One said "I want to marry your daughter, what is your price?" Knowing the custom, my parents did not refuse--they named their price: forty cows, one camel and two Toyota pickup trucks. The men gasped; this was a king's fortune. They went on their way and thus, I am not an African bride.

But if anyone wants to marry me, they will have to pay this price...

Small feats.

The other night I had a dream that my Scottish ancestors were fighting the Irish, and I was watching from behind a rock on a sort of cliff. Above me were two Irishmen who were watching and talking about the battle. The Scottish were winning, but the two observers did not seem afraid; they looked confident and smug, and one told the other to wait. All of a sudden, a wind rushed onto the field and knocked everyone over, killing them instantly. The Irishman called them "wind warriors" with a grim look on his face. I hid myself under a thick blanket, hoping they would miss me, but knowing what was coming. The wind washed over me and I died as I woke up. It was a horrible feeling, but I haven't yet tried to figure out it's significance.

Every day when I walk home from the bus stop, the same dog barks persistently at me, and I usually bark back. Today, I hissed instead, and the woman in front of me looked at me like she thought I was going to eat her. A little girl at the apartment complex stopped on her tricycle to ask me "why are you here?" I told her I lived here and she rewarded me with a full smile, minus one front tooth.

The Last Happy Night of Your Life

AKA Ruthie in Wonderland: My Trip to the Big City

No, I didn't see any caterpillars with hookahs or hang out with any Cheshire Cats...but I did see a homeless man who could tell jokes and stick his fingers in his eye sockets! My roommate and I took a few city buses down to Seattle yesterday to see the Mountain Goats and Kaki King at the Showbox @ the Market. First we hung out with some trendy art school kids in Belltown, and then we hit up the grocery store for some microwave burritos. Alllllright.

Kaki King, who I'd never heard of before the show, was phenomenal. Their lead guitarist was just a ball of cuteness and energy and dykiness. She opened with a rad slap guitar solo, and then the rest of the band came out. She also had a lovely, eerie voice rather reminiscent of that of Portishead's vocalist.They played a great set and ended with a rousing German hardcore punk anthem. She probably switched guitars about ten times during the show, and her guitar playing was absolutely extraterrestrial. By the end of the night, Nik was in love (mind you, he had no idea that she's a staunch lesbian.)

The Mountain Goats, of whom I am a gigantic fan, came onstage after Kaki, and baaahhhh it just made me so happy (seriously, I made a similar noise when Darnielle started into his first song.) My brother and I have the whole Mountain Goats discography, which, I realized, is actually quite common among Mountain Goats fans. They played a lot of old favorites and some new ones, and Darnielle played the audience like a lord. He did some acoustic songs, and then about three songs with Kaki King on guitar, which was rad. He dropped his guitar pick about halfway through the show and I made Bart get it for me. So that was Monday night.

I'm finally getting to know my way around Seattle; it doesn't seem as menacing as it did before. Bart and I wandered around until we found Motorre Coffee (great coffee, by the way), just across from the Greyhound station. We had a lot of time to kill, so I caught up on some schoolwork while Bart dissected a New Yorker. At some point or another I had to go the bathroom, so I went to find one...

I went down a hall that looked like it probably led to a bathroom, but all there was at the end was an unmarked door, so I turned back.

Then I asked one of the baristas where I could find a bathroom, and she directed me through a glass door on my left. "Just walk past the security guard." uh huh.

Needless to say, he didn't let me in, since apparently I wasn't chique enough for their bathrooms...

So I went back, and she told me to just walk past the guard again, but I didn't want to, so I asked where else there might be a bathroom.

"Well, the key to the women's bathroom got stolen, but you could see if Taco del Mar has one."
That sounded like way to much effort, so I decided to hold it.

Finally, when I couldn't hold it any longer, I opted use the men's bathroom, which was down the first hall with the unmarked door.

I unlocked the door and walked in to the smelly, single-stall bathroom only to be startled by a shifty looking guy in the stall who said "Hello, miss." I'm not sure who was more shocked.

I went back to the coffee shop and told her that there was someone in there, not realizing that Taco del Mar, Motorre Coffee, and 'A' Pizza Mart all shared a single bathroom.

I decided to weigh my options. I could:
A. Hold it for a long time until the guy left the bathroom
B. Hold it forever. Give up.
C. Try to find another women's restroom key...

I chose option C. The barista told me that "One of the doors opens into Taco del Mar." Thanks.

There were about five unmarked, tan doors in the corridor. The aroma of fish tacos mingled with pepperoni pizza, exhaust and bathroom cleaner lingered in the air. hmmm...which door should I choose.

I opened the door directly in front of me, and found myself in a world of color, a pizza parlour run by a friendly-looking Indian woman. 'A' Pizza Mart, read the sign on the window. I didn't think the name was very appealing. The woman handed me a key and pointed me towards the restroom. I must have given her a gaze worthy of a goddess.

As I went out into the corridor, I noticed a man with a horrible bloody nose and blood running down his chin trying to get in to the men's bathroom. I told him there was probably someone in there.

I unlocked the door to the women's bathroom, my heart pounding, hoping no one would be shooting up inside...

But no one was there. I did my business, gave back the key and went back to my reading.

And so ends the epic tale of a very small person in a very large world.

Mushrooms!

On a whim, I went to the Wild Mushrooms festival at Bloedel Donovan today, put on by the Northwest Mushroom Association (I know, right?) Anyway, it was amazing! And I'm now a proud member of the association and owner of my very own Shiitake log! whoo! There was a ton of information on wild mushrooms of the PNW, and the displays were fantastic. They also had cookbooks, mushroom-hunting guides and a mushroom identification table. The best part, though, was the food. First I had roasted chanterelles on buttered French bread, and then this amazing creamy herb soup with some kind of delicious mushroom that I can't remember the name of. On my way home I found five different kinds of lawn mushrooms that I'm going to identify and (hopefully) eat.

So, I dedicate this to the morel, my favorite fungus:

Oh Grim Reaper of flora,

Queen of decay,

fragile and beautiful you wait in the cool, damp earth

to collect the souls of the forest;

until someone collects you.

hehe

íOh! I forgot!

I just Mountain Goats tickets! The show is Monday the 20th at the Showbox. They'll be presenting The Last Happy Night of Your Life. yay. I'm stokkkked.

Also, when making balsamic caramels, I ran out of caramel. So Shu and I added lavender extract and made lavender-vanilla truffles in a white chocolate ganache and coated them with dark. I'm not a huge fan of white chocolate, but these turned out pretty well and we were able to use our excess vanilla ganache from the caramels. The bitter taste of lavender really complements the sweetness of the Mexican vanilla. mmmm.

A visit with the family...

Corban says he has an "eternal tickle" in the back of his throat. He's been home sick for the past week or so with symptoms of strep, poor kid. He's just like me when I was younger. I always had strep syndromes but never an actual strep diagnosis. Corban's twin brother, Jesse, barely gets sick, and when he does it's not nearly as hard-hitting. Corban kind of got the short end of the stick in the womb, so to speak. Jesse definitely got more testosterone and other nutrients. He's more aggressive, bigger, stronger and healthier, whereas Corban is emotional and more content to sit inside and make art.

I wish the boys could have the kind of life Jordan and I had when we were little (well, aside from a few things). We lived in Quebec, Africa and Texas, and my mom homeschooled us for a long time. We didn't really get sucked into the technological world as my brothers are now, and we learned so much more from my mom and from our reading-based curriculum than we would have learned from any public school. Sometimes I wish I could homeschool them myself, since my parents no longer have time.

But they're turning out just fine : )

Le sigh.

Every time I tell myself I'm going to keep some free time in my schedule, I end up loading myself down with commitments and such.

I started drinking coffee again...

Ben's Honors Seminar on the Epic in Text and Performance is great. Basically, we read Beowulf, The Battle of Kosovo, various other epics and interesting articles and talk about them for two hours a week. Narrowing my focus like this has really let me explore one of the oldest classic forms of literature. I'm having an awesome time : )
Ben is bringing Benjamin Bagby to WCC at the end of this month, and it should be pretty amazing. He'll be performing, from memory, the first third of Beowulf in the original (albeit reconstructed) Anglo-Saxon (with supertitles) in the style of a bard. Our class is teaming up with the art department at Whatcom to make Grendel's bloody, sinewy arm, which we'll hang above Benjamin's head. We're making it out of tree branches, sticks and papier maché. Tickets are almost sold out, but you can get them at WCC and (I think) Village Books.

Crazy dream

I was with Jordan, Bart and Jeni at some sort of carnival or resort and we needed to escape. Jeni took us to her "house", which was a concrete shelter on the end of a dock. It was a beautiful sunny day, and Jordan took his bike from where it was stored in the shelter, which was full of water and outdoor gear. I tried to take another bike, but Jordan kept telling me it was "too soft". Then I realized it was covered in batting and blue satin. So we left on Jordan's bike, riding and floating across the bay. After riding on a road for awhile, we saw a small, boxlike car where three tiny women dressed like Amish dolls in red were riding home. They stopped at a house with dry grass and a ditch by the roadside, and then they were all magically wearing shorts and T-shirts, and we realized they were witches. Bart and I recognized them from some earlier time. They had straw sun hats, wings and grey hair, and all of a sudden they began to shrink until they flattened themselves out into flower/weed-caterpillars on the grass and stopped moving. Then they started to skitter around, and change back and forth between their human and...other form. One came down into the ditch and Jeni touched it and it turned into a cat skin and started gliding around on the ground. Then I woke up.

Domesticity

So I'm in the kitchen choppin' this wierdo vegetable that looks like a tadpole; I figure you can toss anything in a stir fry. So I'm in there, right? and all of a sudden the place starts to reek of root beer. So I check around a bit, y' know, it's not a big place, and I come across this purple mess in the bathtub. Turns out Jordan's mixed up some kinda chemical cocktail; says he's been cleanin'. I dunno about the whole thing; seems kinda fishy to me...