clairevoyant paranoia

renewed interest

2007-08-01T21:22:00.000-07:00

hello out there.

i find myself experiencing a renewed interest in the blogosphere. since i left my position at the library a year ago, I really haven’t played with the interweb at all. i have barely even read the blogs of close friends. but, i think i feel ready to jump back into the virtual world. i don't know why exactly. perhaps my interest is a response to the blogging example john paul has been setting. i suppose his blog should be enough to record the general goings-on round here, but i guess i have blog-envy.

earlier today, heather was telling about tumblelogs. having been away for a while, i am quite outside of the loop. i was looking at looking at marcel’s tumblelog and, while i find it interesting, i think i prefer the personal blog. i like the innocent glimpses into other people’s lives; i enjoy the way people blend their personal stories in with the things they find fascinating about the world.

anyway, it feels good to be here.

mcsweeny's sleep test

2006-04-22T14:41:00.000-07:00

Find your own pose!

Pinching Koala and Tree Traits and Tendencies
Pinching Koala and Tree couples experience a kind of super symbiosis that other sorts of couples (especially vegan couples) only dream of. The harmony that comes from this kind of pairing would be revolting if it weren’t so inspirational, which is why Pinching Koalas and Trees are often surrounded by friends and would-be friends, and their schedules are often booked months in advance.

Comfort Zone
Pinching Koala and Tree is one of the Wind sleepers poses. Other Wind poses you might explore include Softserve Swirl and Fireman's Carry.

Note: Koalas make for excellent lawyers and flea market bargainers, thanks to their characteristic tenaciousness.

time vacuum

2006-04-05T18:13:00.000-07:00

hi there. are you still with me? i feel very guilty for my shameful neglect of this blog, but i see from my links that i am not alone in this. distracted by life, are we all?

tonight i had high hopes of creating an excessive documentation of our recent trip to sxsw. here's the short version: it was excellent. we got into all the shows we wanted to see and had a great time.

details to come someday. soon, maybe? but, rather than create, i spent my time tonight lost in a spiral of reading the blogs of strangers. i somehow got sucked into looking at dollhouses. believe it or not, this was actually a direct tangent to work.

i stumbled into the fascinating green doll house project, through the bizarre world of new york hipster fathering. from the archived page i entered, at first i thought this blog was simply a catalog of items this man saw for sale on ebay; but, it isn't quite. it is super heavy on the commercial consumption of parenting. i find it very strange. from conversations with deb, and from the posts and comments on this blog, i am led to believe that the baby-as-fashionable-accessory mode of parenting dominates in nyc.

to prove that i might not be much better, i really like this linked knitting pattern: baby's first dna model by kimberly chapman

sin & redemption

2006-02-17T11:44:00.000-08:00

sinandredemption
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

if you're in houston, don't miss aurora picture show's sin & redemption weekend. a/v geeks is back in town with films about our love of alcohol and its positive and negative effects tonight showing at st. arnold's brewery and Creepy Christian Cinema tomorrow at aurora.

valentine's day sugar crash

2006-02-14T13:51:00.000-08:00

you let me down, mr. sugar.

poetic licence

2006-02-07T08:45:00.000-08:00

john paul has finally found an outlet for his deepest, most private thoughts.

unexpected

2006-01-18T16:15:00.000-08:00

check out number 72 on this list. and, it was one of the four items from the list featured in the npr interview.

goodbye greezed lightnin

2006-01-16T14:31:00.000-08:00

last weekend (well, weekend before last, january 8th) john paul, justin, and i went down to astroworld for the final time, to watch the last day of the astroworld auction. people were paying crazy money for ridiculous junk. i can no longer remember any good examples. sorry. i really wished i had an extra $5000 to buy some silly ol' sign from the cyclone. well, what i really wanted (apart from the roller coasters) was the big metal sign that was centered at the loop of greezed lighnin telling about the life and work of the roller coaster designer anton schwarzkopf who created greezed lightnin and the viper, among other classics. alas, it was not up for auction.

i was very disappointed that we missed the saturday auction as i heard they sold the actual greezed lightnin for only 7 thousand dollars. i hope whoever bought it reinstalls it somewhere in town and opens it up for fun. as you can see from the picture, they had already dismantled it. so sad. so sad.

p.s. am i going crazy? i really thought i had blogged about our pre-halloween trip to astroworld with heather and greg. i don't see it anywhere in the archives. is this a false memory i have?

heather and her perfect pies!

2006-01-15T20:15:00.000-08:00

heather&pie
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

delicious! heather made some amazing pies: pecan pie, chocolate peanut butter pie, and the yummiest blueberry cranberry lattice pie. super duper!

happy pie day friday!!

2006-01-13T13:55:00.000-08:00

pie day friday the fourth
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

today is friday the 13th, thus pie day friday. this is my 6th pie day friday celebration. (the picture is from the 4th.) this pie day marks a great expansion of the movement. i am off to austin to join heather's celebration. she's makin the pie and doing the hosting. jason and deb sent a nice message saying they were planning to eat some pie today as well, celebrating on the east coast. so, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, i hope you find an excellent slice of pie today.

p.s. pie day friday memories can be found here, near the bottom.

happy birthday, birthday boy

2006-01-12T14:39:00.000-08:00

tuesday was john paul's birthday.

nasa lunch tray

2006-01-09T15:14:00.000-08:00

NASA tray
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

johnson space center recently replaced their old, beautiful cafeteria trays with new, boring, generic trays. in the process, they sold the lovely old trays. john paul was lucky enough to snag a few. we love them.

passing

2006-01-05T07:36:00.000-08:00

love.

happy december

2005-12-04T19:54:00.000-08:00

so, here are some things we have done this past month or so:

* replaced our dead computer;

* enjoyed the remainder of the quilt festival;

* took a fantastic trip up to portland, oregon to visit joel, tess, and nicholas,

during which we toured the tillamook cheese factory, visited haystack rock (featured in the goonies!), saw they might be giants in concert, and went walking along the columbia river gorge;

* celebrated our second anniversary at the kennedy school in portland;

* went to dallas for thanksgiving;

* went to a huge multi-family inter-generational family reunion of my grandfather's family;

* put up our christmas tree.

overall, a good month

the agony and ecstasy

2005-10-26T14:44:00.000-07:00

last friday our computer decided to go to sleep and refused to wake up. we're replacing the power supply, crossing our fingers and hoping that will fix it, but it remains to be seen. it is shocking to realize how much we depend on the interweb.

so, how 'bout them 'stros? i stayed up until around 2am watching last night's game. oh, how it broke my heart. i've decided i shouldn't watch tonight; maybe my avid viewing is jinxing them.

in delightful news, the quilt festival is this week!! (last year i took too many pictures.)

i took a half-day class on monday, which was fantastic. tomorrow i am taking a full day class entitled "surface design with found objects." i am worried i am in a bit over my head. i think we will be designing our own fabrics and such. my mom and an aunt are taking a color class on sunday; i am thinking about joining in with them. i love the classes, but it is a little lonely being shy and alone in a class full of boisterous, older, very experienced (most of the people in my monday class were quilting teachers in their home cities) quilters.

tonight is the "festival preview." i am so excited, despite the fact that i am so exhausted i can hardly see straight.

yippee!!

2005-10-19T21:10:00.000-07:00

ready
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

we've been a bit preoccupied with baseball 'round here. the astros are headed to the world series!! i am so excited. you might not know this about me, but i am a closet sports nut. i keep it pretty well hidden, but sometimes i allow myself to get carried away in the thrill of the game - and the series. i shamefully admit that, having had to work 4 of the last 5 games, i have been wearing my walkman radio around the library, one earphone in, wires under my shirt, listening to the great milo hamilton (and my once-favorite astro alan ashby) call the games. i was so swept up in the fervor that i even bought a baseball hat today. i haven't worn a baseball hat since i was 10, if not younger. i wore it around the library tonight, but felt really self-conscious.

well, we did put in for world series tickets, but those are apparently really hard to get. everyone i know entered themselves and at least two relatives into the lottery, and nobody i know won.

go 'stros!!

unexpected fun

2005-10-01T09:07:00.000-07:00

our time up in dallas coincidentally coincided with
botcon 10: the transformers convention.

well, ok, i stayed home. but john paul took great pictures.

home, safe and sound

2005-09-27T08:03:00.000-07:00

we made it home yesterday evening. the trip home was six hours, with a twenty-minute stop. so, about five and a half hours of driving. it was so much better. still, it was the second-longest time it has ever taken us to make that distance.

it is nice to be home. everything here is fine: no fallen trees, no power outages, no water contamination, no gas shortages.

the re-population was fairly uneventful. traffic was heavy and slow from before huntsville, but it kept moving along. we managed to sedate one of the cats, but our orange cat zeugma, otherwise known as spanky the great, or president kitty, was having none of it. we tried five or six times, but the pill always ended up on the floor, and me with deep scratches all over my body. he screamed much more ferociously all the way home. and he would claw at the cage, trying to open the doors. we passed a car on our way to dallas in which two cats sat perched, one on a box, one in the back window, calm as anything, just like they were sitting in a boring ol' room at home. i am totally jealous. why can't our cats be like that?

i guess i am glad we evacuated this time. we did what we could with the information we had. but, i will say that i will think carefully before evacuating again. it is always hard to assess risks, but really, how much risk were we actually facing? even if it had come into galveston as a strong 4, the potential danger was nothing like new orleans faced with katrina. and our house, in our neighborhood, would it really have been at risk? granted, the thought of no power for a week or so in +100 degree heat is extremely unpleasant. maybe that's enough. i don't know. i just will think it all through more carefully next time.

in other news, there was an interesting article about doulas in the new york times this weekend. the article has some flaws, but it was nice to see some coverage. i was disappointed that out of all the hundreds of pictures of doulas and new mothers, they used a photo of a woman who was bottle feeding. i know, teen mothers especially have trouble accepting breastfeeding, but what a great opportunity to show that some do choose to breastfeed. the article said that the rate of breastfeeding among teens who had a doula was up to 50%. that is fantastic. why not show a picture of one of them? breastfeeding is so hidden in our society, i find it shocking. i know, one must accept women where they are and respect the choices that they have made, but seeing baby hurricane evacuees starving because they lacked formula and clean water, when they were with their mothers and her breasts, just made me angry. it isn't just an age or class problem. the statistics are up a little, but still, at 6 months, only 50% of babies are breastfed at all (and only 14% of those are exclusively breastfed.) or maybe, the statistics show that at 3 months, 42.5% of infants were exclusively breastfed , and 51.5% were breastfed to some extent. At 6 months, these rates dropped to 13.3% and 35.1%, respectively. either way, things aren't so good for the babies. and i think part of the problem is the media's subtle, but significant, messages about the convenience of bottlefeeding and the unacceptability of images of breastfeeding. all a bunch of malarkey.

additional details

2005-09-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

john paul pointed out that i neglected to tell you our total travel time:

twenty hours, thirty minutes

additionally, he wanted me to balance out my story by sharing with you my own moment of breakdown.

we had been travelling almost 14 hours. when we reached the contra-flow cross-over, it seemed as though everyone was going on the contra-flow and no one was staying on the regular freeway. thus, the contra-flow lanes were backing up, where as the regular lanes were clear. if we had had any sleep and hadn't been driving so long, we would have thought this through and realized that the contra-flow lanes would eventually be the better place to be. the regular lanes would still be clogged up with all the people who had been on the road before the contra-lanes opened up, whereas the contra-lanes would be clear up ahead. but, we thought only in the moment and stayed on the regular road. after about 5 minutes of wonderful free driving, we hit the backlog. it was sooo frustrating! we saw a way to exit the freeway, u-turn, and get on the contra-flow lanes. at this point, i was totally exhausted, it was really hot, i was worried about running out of gas and still being stuck on the freeway when the hurricane hit two days later, i was desperately worried about the cats, and i hadn't been to the bathroom in 14 hours! i seriously had to wee. during our u-turn, we missed a restaurant that had a bathroom and got directly onto the contra-flow lanes. and as soon as we did, we hit more gridlock! i totally lost it. i started crying hysterically and said all kinds of crazy things. but, we soon passed a forested area, so i made john paul pull over so i could relieve myself. and a relief it was indeed. from then on, we were both able to roll with the situation and we did fine.

we stopped for gas in madisonville. we did have to wait in line for 35-40 minutes, but they had plenty of gas and it all worked out. i did think john paul might come to blows with a jerk who cut in front of me in the gas line, but he kept his head and it was fine.

we finally reached casa yabraian at about 8:45 and had a lovely, light dinner. the cats settled in great and don't seem to be suffering permanent damage. they are still a little nervous being in a new place, but they are sleeping and eating well. we slept a long sleep and have had a pretty good day today. as an added bonus, cindy and david (whom you might remember from the wedding- cindy was the maid of honor) are in dallas visiting cindy's brother, so we get to see them!!

my dad, however, is in tyler, texas (in from florida, where he weathered 3 hurricanes last year.) he has been staying in his concession trailer at some state fair, but he is looking for shelter. the winds and possible tornadoes in that area are quite worrying. so, here's hoping he finds a good place to wait out the storm and her aftershocks.

un - freakin' - believable!

2005-09-23T09:34:00.000-07:00

hello all. you have probably seen the pictures of the houston evacuation, but i know i didn't really understand what those images meant. let me tell you. the drive from our house downtown houston to john paul's parent's house in dallas is normally exactly a 4 hour drive. we knew the evacuation would cause crazy traffic problems, so we were expecting an 8, maybe a 12 hour drive. we left home at 15 minutes past midnight. at 8 am, we had just arrived at the exit i normally take to work (a 15 minute drive). at noon, we had not yet reached the woodlands!! so, if you know houston, you understand. the mayor had told people to be prepared for very long drives in the evacuation, but how in the heck do you prepare for it to take over 12 hours to get out of city itself?

we had tried to sedate the cats with benadryl per the vet's instructions. it seemed to work fairly well for xochi, our super-hyper-freaked-out cat. usually in the car he makes the most terrifying noises, but he was quiet most of the time. zeugma, on the other hand, must have vomited up the pill at some point; he was not calm at all. for 11 hours (!!) he screamed one meow a second, every single second. around hour 7, john paul took him out of the carrier and tried holding him in his lap. but, after driving all night without sleep and still being essentially in the center of the city, john paul's nerves were shot. zeugma wouldn't calm down and relax and his squirming pushed john paul over the edge. back into the carrier zeug went. not like being out helped him much. by hour 9, zeugma's mews were weak and quiet, but still consistent. at hour 11 he seemed resigned to his fate and gave up complaining. although i worried he was dying, thank goodness he stopped. it allowed us to calm down and relax a bit at a critical point in the trip. still hardly any sleep, and inching through the woodlands, his incessant meowing would have driven us totally crazy.

the scene on the road was crazy. it was just like the fatal scenes in every disaster movie ever made: people walking around between cars; cars pulling other cars on ropes; cars overheating and breaking down all over; cars running out of gas; cars stopped on the shoulder with people sleeping in the open hatches or on the road next to the car; many people not using air conditioners, maybe to save on gas, sweating in the 100 degree heat. i've never seen anything like it.

the highway department said they were opening up the contra-flow lanes of i-45 at 9am, then they said it would be ready at 11am. when we got there (just north of the woodlands) about 1:30pm, it looked like it had just opened up. but it made a HUGE difference. finally we were able to drive almost at 30 mph. for the whole trip, we averaged 12 mph. most of the night hours we were at 1, or in a good hour 2, mph.

i'm totally ready to move to a city with a smaller population, far away from hurricane strike zones. i have a feeling these kinds of situations are going to keep happening. jp's mom saw a nasa weather scientist saying that we'll see active hurricane seasons with extremely strong storms for at least the next 10 years. welcome to the consequences of global warming!

succumbing to panic

2005-09-21T21:34:00.000-07:00

off to dallas. toodle-oo!

shock

2005-09-08T08:25:00.000-07:00

like everyone, i am in a perpetual state of shock. yes, shocked about the disaster in hurricane hit areas, and the appalling results of the man-exacerbated disaster in new orleans, but mostly shocked by the total inadequacy and intentional idiocy of the government's response. the timelines of events are just incredible. here's a simple one and a more detailed one.

i mean, i knew this administration was terrible, but i am still totally appalled by the whole thing. i just can't believe it. and all of the heartbreaking stories of people who survived despite the best efforts of the government. it really is overwhelming.

i hope the tremendous flaws in the structure of our society revealed by this tragedy continue to stay in the forefront of everyone's minds. it is truly time to talk openly, as a country, about why we have a government and what responsibilities that government has to all of its citizens: to protect them from the devastations of poverty, to offer true safety in the face of emergency, and to immediately respond to disasters. i mean, FEMA turned away help!! this whole thing is just totally unbelievable. compare this to the response of FEMA to the minor hurricane Frances, that hit florida during the election campaign. there, FEMA declared miami-dade an emergency area, even though the hurricane did not hit the area.

it all just makes me feel sick. i know i am not saying anything new; really, i'm just speechless.

avast! fetch me some grog smartly, you lubber!

2005-08-23T15:25:00.000-07:00

comin' up september 19th!!

My pirate name is:

Iron Charity Flint

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you are a tough person. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

the good and the bad.

2005-08-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

well, the good news is that the doula training two weeks ago was fantastic! the course was very inspiring. i am still a little nervous about taking on a client. i am mentally preparing myself to seek out opportunities. i figure, to keep working at the library, i can really only take on one client anyway.

not that i am a great public speaker or anything, but this morning a co-worker and i gave a presentation to a group of teachers on how to use the library's resources. the topic was simple, but i was reminded how much i enjoy training-type situations. my first job out of college was as a bookseller and assistant trainer at borders. i really loved training new employees. maybe i could go around giving little presentations on topics i know things about. that would probably be fun. speaking in public makes me really nervous when i don't really know what i'm talking about, or if the groups are too big, but talking about things i know well to small/medium sized groups of friendly people sounds fantastic.

and the bad news is that i had a weird and rapidly-progressing problem with my gum tissue. i had to go to a periodontist who then performed a gum tissue implant. they used freezed-dried connective tissue harvested from a cadaver! so, my mouth looks disgusting and my smile is goofy. it doesn't quite hurt, but it is a little sore. i also suffered a bad fall this weekend. it had been a long time since i had a good scrape-'em-up fall. I skinned my elbow very deeply and my knee to a lesser extent.

worse, i dropped my lovely sony clie. the screen shattered right over the writing interface, so it doesn't work at all. we only purchased the one-year protection plan, and it's been a year and a half. drats. i really loved my clie. and sony stopped making them. (companies always seem to stop making the things i love the most. i guess my values are in opposition to the values of the majority of consumers.) perhaps it is all an experiment in letting go.

and so it begins.

2005-07-19T18:40:00.000-07:00

as we were walking out of ming's tonight, the silent tv told me that bush has made his nomination. the nominee is not a woman and is unequivocally conservative and anti-choice. i think they rushed on the nomination to take the heat off of rove. i wish that for once the media could follow two big stories at once.

as if i wasn't disturbed enough already, following the reading of harry potter and the half-blood prince.... it's as if i can feel the dementors in the air, all around us.