Not What I Seem

New Listing at the Store: Esqueemow!

2010-06-14T20:28:00.000+01:00

I'm not really sure what he is (besides SQUEEEEEE!!!). He won't take the snow suit off.

Please to find him at the STORE

Bisque fired terracotta clay

Hand built

Unglazed

Approx 3" tall

This is a golden opportunity to purchase a 100% original hand made piece of sculpture by an up and coming artist.

It's a bargoon at $22 USD plus VAT and Shipping.

Remember this is a unique, original, and one of a kind artwork. Handmade with HAPPY!

Cross Stitch Tree Motifs

2010-06-10T20:56:00.001+01:00

Find the full size chart here

Wordless Wednesday

2010-06-09T21:31:00.000+01:00

It's what all the cool kids seem to be doing...

New Listing at the Store: Bunnai (Bunny Moai)

2010-06-04T13:09:00.004+01:00

Handmade white earthenware ceramic bunny.

Matte with pink glazed accents. About 3" tall including the ears.

Check him out at the store

$22 plus shipping and VAT

100% original Hancock's House of Happy

A great opportunity to own an original piece of artwork.

Get him while he is hot for your Hunnai Bunnai.

New Listing at the Store: Jack Bauer Cross Stitch

2010-05-27T14:07:00.003+01:00

As the store sold out in such a short time I didn't want to have it empty.

This time we have a an incredibly kitschy cross stitch.

An original even-star Hancock design stitched with Luuurve and much Happy.

Buy it.

Buy it NOW!

New Listing at the Store: Radiohead Embroidery

2010-05-27T14:07:00.000+01:00

Check it out! The brilliant Radiohead in backstitch. At Last!

This one comes framed as well. Bargoon or what folks?

Am I right?

The perfect addition to any "hip" nursery or Mac fan-boy office.

Of Boys and Men: even-star Has a Moment, Is Stuck In Between

2010-05-21T22:42:00.000+01:00

SD and I can't be together this weekend.

200 miles is complicated at best. I am still not sure how I ended up in this 'arrangement'.
This is how I know that I love SD:

(Talking to my mom on the phone last week)

the Mom: So is SD coming down this weekend?
Me: no he was down last week remember. I am going up to his.
the Mom: is it a long weekend or something
Me: no
The Mom: do you have a meeting on the Friday up there?
Me: nope
the Mom: so you are only going to be there like a day and half
Me: well, yeah. It is only fair we trade off weekends
the Mom: gees, it must be love.
Me: it does seem like quite a long way to go just to get laid
the Mom: Dad! Do you want to speak to your daughter?
the Dad: Be right there. What is she up to?
the Mom: she's getting laid

And indeed it does seem quite a long way to go just to have sex. I mean, there is tons of sex going in my own neck of the woods. If that was all I was interested in I could be saving a fortune in gas money.

My dad asked if SD like paid for my gas when I went up to see him and I said no.

SD and I are not a million miles apart in our salaries. If he was making say twice or half as much again as I did then maybe he would be coming down here more often or helping me fill my tank. But he doesn't. I was actually quite shocked at his salary knowing how skilled, knowledgeable, and hard working he is.

He has to come down here more often on business than I have to go up to his office and he does get paid for that. But in the end that is still wear and tear on his car for work. And he does treat me so well when we are together.

He spoils me in fact. Takes me to lunch and dinner and drives me around and cooks me steak and brings me wine and flowers and helps me in the garden.

But I won't lie. Living from weekend to weekend is sometimes hard. Well actually there is no sometimes about it. It just is what it is. Which I am not sure what it is. Exactly.

sigh

Monday to Friday is this weird sort of gap. SD and I have a life together but it only exists on Saturday and Sunday. The rest of the time is the in between where I am just me on my own trying to get things done.

It is like living two lives and not enough time for either.

I am sort of looking forward to having a weekend to myself because there are things I can do on my own that I wouldn't do if we were together. But I also miss SD and want us to be together because the stuff that we do when we are together is also great.

Living as far apart as we do we both do give up a lot to be together. The seven or eight hours a week in the car is simply dead time. If we had the option of week day time together then weekends could be split up into own time and together time. We could do our Saturday morning things like shopping and laundry and then meet up after lunch.

There would be no in between. It would just be life.

But it isn't like that and I am beginning to wonder how much longer we can go on with it. Living two lives. Being stuck in the in between.

And what decision will we make. Together or as individuals.

I look at my life now and for all it would be great to have more time my life would be less for not having SD in it right now.

Some how he makes me happy. Sometimes I just like looking at him. He can be very serious and mature, especially about his work, and he knows how to do so amazing things but he is also in many ways a big kid. It has rubbed off a bit on me and I have shed some of the reserve and seriousness that used to isolate me.

We drove out to see the people who will be firing my work. They have this big country house and huge studio and as we pulled in the drive this gorgeous black dog came bounding up to meet us.

SD jumped out of the car and the dog jumped on him and he just started to play and run around with it even before we introduced ourselves. He was so uninhibited and unselfconcious. The light in his face was so beautiful. I could see the boy I never knew. The boy who helped his father build an animal sanctuary every weekend since he was nine. The boy who loved the outdoors and working with his hands and bonfires and his BMX. The boy yet undamaged by a tragic mistake and disappointment and all the graft and monotony of routine, bills, and responsibilities that make someone a man.

It was a moment so bitter sweet to see the heart I love so utterly exposed for what it is. The boundless loving laughing guileless heart of a boy.

Sometimes I wonder if there are times when he sees in me the little girl who used to dance, play with her animals, swim in the river at high tide and come home with seaweed in her hair.

What lights up my face in an unguarded moment. Do I even have them.

SD lives two lives too it seems. The life of the man who works hard and worries about bills and deadlines and his waist line and carries a weight from the past on that beautiful heart. And the life of the boy who loves dogs, faffing about in the kitchen, burning the prehistoric weeds in his garden, and tickling my feet.

For SD I think I am the in between. He is starting to find a balance. Time for work. Time for himself. Time for me. Time for the boy and time for the man.

And what will we do? SD and I. About the in between.

I still don't know.

I do know that my bed will be cold tonight when I would rather have it warm. That I will be making coffee for one tomorrow morning when I would rather it would be for two. I won't laugh as much or talk as much or live as much as when we are together.

But laundry must be done. Stitches must be stitched. Garden weeded and groceries bought.

There is always so much to do in between.

Missing Something: even-star Reassesses a Goal

2010-05-14T17:35:00.000+01:00

Had a few spare minutes and have been reading some past posts. And I realized that I actually like writing here and miss writing here. Just about my life and the people in it.

I want to re-commit to posting at this blog even though I said I was going to let it go for a while.

There have recently been a couple of posts about me and SD that are quite dark. I was in a bad place at the time but also I am still worried about him. There is a problem there that at some point we are going to have to face. Maybe avoiding posting here is a way of avoiding that problem. To be honest I am just not sure what to do about it right now.

He needs nurturing. Has expressed himself the desire to change. I have to let him get on with that and support him. He may be able to work it out himself if he knows I am there for him.

I need to tread carefully. I don't think we are at a point in our relationship where either of us has the right to make demands of the other in regards to lifestyle or habits or whatever.

I have tried to quantify my feelings for him and concluded that you don't think about someone so much or go through so much trouble for someone if you don't care about them. Whether that is love or something else I don't know.

He is down this weekend which means Dinner For Two Goodness but also more Adventures of even-star and Stella Dave.

Progress Report

2010-05-12T15:54:00.002+01:00

Having a catch up on life and especially on my To Do list from March.

1.Get up earlier on weekdays. I can put an hour into writing before I have to get ready for work or even go for a run instead of going to the gym after work.

Check:
I am getting up earlier and I am also leaving for work later. I am finding that I have an whole hour in the morning that is totally for me. But I am not using it as I had intended. If I start getting up even earlier then perhaps some of that time will be devoted to creative pursuits but right now I am using the time to keep on top of the house work. This means that I have to do less on weekends and have more time after work and gym can be put into my creative work.

2. Create a schedule. Figure out how many hours I have that are not spent at work or the gym and define for each day of the week what I will work on and for how long.

Progress:
I did create one and followed it for a couple of weeks. It worked out OK except that sometimes I just feel like doing something specific like cross stitching but the schedule says I should be doing my ceramics. So I will do the ceramics but get frustrated because I really felt like doing something else. Also I had SD down during the week which meant what was on the schedule didn’t get done.

So I am not sure this is quite the way. I find I am gradually falling into a routine, especially with all the time I have in the morning now. It might turn out to be something more goal oriented on a monthly basis like get X number of pottery pieces done and such and such number of articles written.

3. Do at least one post per week to NotWhatISeem so that I can see my own progress

Fail:
Ooooooh… BURN… When was my last post? Damn. And you know I have been dreading posting precisely because I know I am not meeting my own goals as well as I would like. However I have been writing. Not for this blog but for ezine articles and for the D42P and Hancock’s House of Happy. One can only do so much.

4. Create a schedule of projects and posts for the D42P and do no more than 3 posts per week

Progress:
I make sure that I post at least once a week and I am getting better at scheduling tweets for the extra content. My prolonged vacation in Portugal rather interfered with getting into a rhythm with this and I am behind on recipes and menu plans. I got loads of great content and ideas from my mom while I was visiting and I will be sorting through all this in the next couple of weeks.

5. Make at least one cross stitch chart per week not matter how small it is. I plan to use free charts to promote my shop and get people to come an see it

Fail:
Definitely not meeting this one. I think I did two since I did the list. Again being away didn’t help so revisiting this list is motivating me to get back to it.

6. Find a kiln closer to home

Progress:
Going to see someone hopefully this weekend. Don’t know if it will work out yet

7. Keep better track of my ideas in a notebook that I can carry around with me easily

Fail:
Have not sorted this out and being such a simple task I am rather ashamed I haven’t done it. I end up jotting things down on post-its and bits of envelopes. I remember that for certain art classes I have taken one of the requirements was to keep a sketch book and idea journal and even when my grade depended on it I was crap at it. Maybe this method just doesn’t suit me but that seems like a cop out. Maybe because I am afraid it would not have much in it deters me from making the investment. I need to have more faith in myself.

8. Make a space for working in

Progress:
Gradually clearing out certain spaces in my apartment and rearranging things. It is going to take some investment that I cannot afford immediately but having more space and getting rid of clutter really helps my brain.

9. Go dancing once a month

Fail:
Since I posted the list I have been once. But then I was away so I am cutting myself a break here. It is on the agenda for next Monday and I am even hoping to have some proper shoes!

10. Give myself a certain amount of time each day to just chill out and switch off

Check:
I find that I probably give myself too much time during the week! I need to pick up more slack on work days because my weekends with SD are essentially down time.

So how am I doing?

Two points achieved (over achieved in one case), Progress on four points, Fail on 4 points.

That constitutes a pass and also prompts a reassessment.

2. The schedule idea needs some work because a daily schedule is not the answer for me. It is not flexible enough.

3. Posting to this blog I am going commit to a once per month update on goals if there is no other writing. I write here when I HAVE to. So when I don’t HAVE to that is actually a good thing. It means I have my head together and there isn’t anything bothering me.

4. The D42P needs a weekend for me to sort out what I am doing with it. SD and I can’t be together weekend after this so I think I will take the opportunity to go through all of this then and get what I want down on paper

5. The cross stitch charts. Sigh. Sometimes I think I expect too much of myself but I did say ‘no matter how small’ so there really is no reason why I am not meeting this

6. Finding a kiln has been a pain. I hope this one works out.

7. The notebook thing is something I might just abandon. I will give it another go for a month and see if I can get it to work out.

8. Making a space for working in may eventually end up in buying a space for working in. Get the apartment in a state where I can sell and move up the ladder to something bigger that has the space I need. I have a plan of improvements, including a new kitchen, but it all takes money so it is all going to be rather gradual.

9. There are two excuses for not going dancing. The first is money. When I have the time I don’t always have the money and when I have the money I don’t always have the time. The second is SD. If he comes down on the evening of a class I can’t go. I am really keen to get him to go but it is the one thing he is refusing to try. And for not really any good reason other than he doesn’t want to. This disturbs me a bit because I know that he would do almost anything for me and the fact that he won’t do this points to a very deep seated fear or aversion. It would be wrong for me to manipulate him into a situation that so obviously makes him uncomfortable.

He has said he will go to see me do it and I have put this off because I felt it was not fair on him but if he says it again that’s it. We are going!

So that is it for now. I will check back in next month.

To The One I Love

2010-04-08T15:06:00.000+01:00

I know that my face is probably pretty serious right now but I don't want you to be worried or scared or anything. I wrote down everythig I wanted to say to you because I knew that if I didn't I would forget things and it would come out all wrong. It has always been easier to express myself this way and I wanted this to come out in the best way.

So please let me say everything I have to say even though I know you will want to interupt.

I want to start off by saying that I love you and I want you to know and believe that I love you.

I know that it has taken me a long time to say this and there is a reason for that that I am going to tell you about but I could not say everything I have to say here with out telling you I love you and making sure that you know that everything I am about to say is being said because I love you and I want you to be happy and live a long healthy happy life. I would like to look into my future and see you there.

It has been difficult for me to say this because there is one thing that you do that makes it very difficult for me to make a long term emotional investment in our relationship. But I have decided that I do want to make this investment and that I am willing to do what it takes if you will help me to make it work. I hope that what I say now will help us have a future together.

You know how I say that if you are not healthy you are no good to me? I am being serious now and I mean emotionally as well as physically healthy. And there is this thing you do that is not emotionally healthy and is eventually going to make you physically unhealthy. It is creating a distance between us that I am not sure I am going to be able to continue to cross.

It is your alcohol consumption. I know that part of it is a social thing for you but after knowing you for this amount of time and seeing how much you have day to day I feel that you may have a problem with it. It breaks my heart.

For so many years I think you have been afraid of living and that you have not felt good about yourself and that this habit might make you feel good but with out feeling good about yourself.

You are a very special person. Way back last year when I first remember meeting you whenever you walked into the room my heart would make a little skip in my chest. I don't think that is something that comes along in this life very often. You have made me feel so cherished and special.

I have been trying to encourage you and let you know that it is ok for you to live and be happy and do good things for yourself. You have already done so many good things for yourself. These were your decisions. It takes a strong person make those decisions.

This one thing that you do is probably part of a pattern that you established maybe years ago to cope with how you felt about yourself and I believe that until you change this it will not be possible for you to be as free of the past as you can possibly be. I can relate to self destructive behaviour and I know seeing it for what it is and choosing a different path can be scary and exhausting.

You sometimes say you should or would like to cut down on it which makes me believe that you don’t feel good about yourself because of it. It would make me so happy if you could cut down or quit but I think it would make you so much happier too. And make you feel good about yourself. You are a strong, considerate, and thoughtful person and you are a light in my life. In many lives.You don’t need to be afraid of life or of being happy. You are strong enough to be happy and face life without being dependent on anything.
I know I have said before that I have been afraid that our lifestyles are very different but it is more than that. This is really starting to affect how I see the future for us.

I could not go on any longer with out telling you how much I love you and want you to be happy. Maybe you don't see what I see. I see you start at 6 and not stop until you go to bed and I cannot go on much longer watching you do this to yourself. It is so self destructive. It hurts my heart to think that you believe you deserve nothing better or that you can't feel good with out it.

I love and support you and I hope that you can understand what I have said and that I am here for you if you want my help. I don’t want to change you. I want you to be yourself. The strong, independent person that has so much to offer the world and so many things to enjoy. I know you are damaged and there is nothing you are I or anyone can do about that. Just like me.But you can overcome it and have already done so much to help yourself overcome it.

You have made such a huge difference in my life. I didn't know what was missing until you came along. I want you to see in yourself what I see in you: that you are a good, kind, generous, strong person. I want to look into the future and see you there and with this one thing that is becoming very difficult for me to do.

This is because it is starting to affect my own emotional health which is, at best, fragile. I know that this seems very selfish but I have worked so hard to beat depression and be healthy and I have to protect that. It is very hard to watch someone I love keep doing something that is so harmful to himself. I could not go on with out saying something and hope that you understand how concerned I am about you and myself and our relationship. I love you and I want us to be together and will do what it takes to help you with this if you decide you need it.

Maybe it is a decision you didn’t even know you had to make and like everything else this has to be up to you but I needed to tell you all of this so that maybe you would decide to do this next and important positive thing for yourself. To let you know that the decisions you make affect the people who love you.

You probably have a lot to say now. I hope that you are not angry and that you can see this as an expression of sincere concern and love. I know some of it may have hurt your feelings and I am so sorry to have to hurt you in anyway. I think you have had enough of that in your life. I want only the best things in life for you and if I have to say hurtful things in order for you to see that then I have no regrets. And as much pain as this may cause me I would have regretted it forever if we had never been together.

It Happens to the Best of Us

2010-03-31T09:14:00.000+01:00

Apologies folks, there was a typo in the new link yesterday.

Thank you to Lionel for being kind enough to stop by and read and let me know.

I hope the incorrect link did not go anywhere unsavoury!

http://hancockshouseofhappy.blogspot.com/

In Parallel

2010-03-30T17:25:00.001+01:00

You may have noticed that recently the blog has taken on a very personal note.

My original goal for this blog was to chart my artistic projects and progress but that hasn't really happened.

There has been progress and projects but they get lost amongst the more personal posts.

I am keeping this blog open because that sort of writing keeps me sane but I will be branching off in a new blog where I can start giving people more useful information. Like the Dinner For Two Project but it will be about my other creative endeavours.

I hope you will still come here and enjoy reading about my life and share some of your wit and wisdom with me.

For all other enquired please see:

Hancock's House of Happy

A Wish

2010-03-29T22:01:00.000+01:00

I wish that you could hear the rain.

It is so beautiful.

It reminds me of your face.

What the Bee Might Have Been Thinking

2010-03-29T19:44:00.001+01:00

If you have read the previous post you will know all about my experience with the bee. I have to admit that I find inspiration in unlikely places. Most of them painful.

Please look away if you are offended by colourful language. Or cross stitch charts of pissed off insects.

The Bee and The Bear

2010-03-28T14:32:00.186+01:00

Saturday morning. 4:22 am. I have to pee. Dammit. 4:22 am and I have to get up. So I get up. Pee. Go back to bed. The birds are up. Up and twittering and chirping and generally making themselves a nuisance.

I am a very poor modern human. I live dawn to dusk all year ‘round. If the birds are up at 4:22 then so am I up with the imminent dawn. Likewise if they aren’t up until 7:51 it is torture getting out of bed at half six.

Unfortunately there is no bear in my bed to entertain me until a more civilised hour. I call SD my bear because his is so big and warm and nice to cuddle up with. We are not together this weekend. I am going up to his for the long weekend so this is the last weekend I have to get my shit together before going to Portugal.

To be honest I think we needed the break. He has been at my place 9 or 10 days out of the last 14 and for two people who are used to their own space that can be a little wearing in my tacky little place. This in itself worries me. If I was really in love surely space would not be a consideration as long as he was in it. I also feel bad for SD when he is here. No TV to unwind in front of. He walks into town for a pint and pick things up for dinner while I am at the gym but they aren't his people at the pub. It isn't his local where he can catch up on news and bump into friends. He doesn't have anything like an interest that he can bring down with him to do. His rowing machine is not particularly portable.

I did miss him this morning.

When we spoke last night he was planning to go into work. This made me feel bad because if I had gone up to his as I should have he would not have considered it. It is silly to feel bad I know. I flatter myself that he has nothing better to do.

I send him a cheeky text and get up.

I had plenty to do. I did some writing, looked at few blogger template tutorials, made some notes for an article on cross stitch, washed, dressed, scrubbed the floors. All before 9 AM. No text from SD by then. Which is unusual. It then occurred that I hadn’t had a good a good night text from him either.

All of a sudden I am really annoyed. Then a bit worried.

I go for a five mile walk. I feel better. I can see the buds on the trees and blossoms coming out and then that sure sign of spring: the Bumble Bee.The little fuzzy fellows were bumbling around everywhere. About two miles from home I have to cross the street. There is a median in the middle where I have to wait for the traffic. And there at my feet is a lovely big bumble bee.

He was obviously stunned from being caught in the slip stream of a car. I can’t leave him there. He will get squished. He won’t get across the street to the trees by himself. A car will get him. So I scoop him up thinking he will be stunned and harmless. The plan is to set him down in the trees on the other side of the street.

All of a sudden there is a very angry indignant buzz and a very sharp pain in the fleshy part of my thumb.

The little furry sonofabitch STUNG me.

I open my hand and he flies off into the trees and I have to walk two more miles with a very painful hand.

When I get home there is still nothing from SD. All of a sudden I am annoyed again. And worried. And a little bit sad. I am worried about SD and I. Yes the distance is bad. It makes life complicated and we really have to work that bit harder making sure we stay in touch when we can’t be together.

But it is more than that. Despite the pleasure we take in each other’s company our lifestyles are out of sync.

At noon after I have got home and had lunch I finally text him asking him if he is dead, hung over, or just mad at me. I get a text about three hours later that specifies option B. He had just got out of bed at that point.

I felt worse than I did about the going into work thing. If I had been there he would not have done what he did. We would have gone out maybe but would have been in bed by a reasonable time and been up and out by ten doing something.

He calls me a minute later and laughs it off but I still get the impression that he knows he has done something I disapprove of. I try not to sound judgemental but I still find myself saying things that I hate myself for. And that annoys me more. That I now feel bad about myself. The nagging disapproving girlfriend when I am not like that.

So that is three times in one day that I have felt bad about myself. Felt bad that unless I am with him he can’t keep from doing something self destructive. Felt bad that that I have said something judgemental. But when I see someone I care about doing things that seem self destructive to me how can I approve of that?

For so many years my life was so negative. It has been a hard fight to turn it around and make it positive. So when something has caused me to feel bad about myself three times in one day I know it is time to stop and take stock. I don't expect it to be ALL good ALL the time but if there is something that doesn't look to be improving then it either needs to get better or get out.

SD is something very positive in my life but there are times, like this one, that I just don‘t know what to do about him. He is a gorgeous guy. When I tell my mom about the things he does that I shamefully take for granted she always says he sounds like such a great guy.

And he is. He would do anything to help anyone. I know if I am in trouble I can call him and I think that if I were in real trouble he would not think twice about getting in his car and coming to me no matter how far it was.

But I can’t help feeling that maybe, as positive an influence that I have been in his life for so little a time, it is too late for him. It isn’t that people don’t change. I am evidence of that. I changed because if I hadn’t I would be dead by now. And it isn’t even really that I have changed. I just changed how I see myself. But you can’t change that for someone else.

He has established a pattern where there has not been much besides work and beer in his life and he is surrounded by people who have the same pattern. I think the surgery disrupted a recently begun effort to change. In June, before we got together, he had started walking and hiking again. He volunteered at a community project. Got outside himself. He looked tanned and healthy and trim. You could tell that he really felt good about himself.

But with the injury he was forced to be inactive for several months. He fell back into himself. There was an incident at work early in the year that, without the therapeutic effect of exercise, took a lot out of him. All he had was the previous negative pattern to help him deal with it. When we are together he seems self conscious that he has put on a bit of weight and is out of condition. I know what that feels like but know that if I say anything it will make him defensive. I just encourage anything positive he does for himself.

I flatter myself again that until I came along he did not do a lot of positive things for himself. His walking and volunteer work were obviously so good for him but I don't know if anyone ever told him so. And he needed to be told.

On the phone with him I try to sound ironic. But I don’t sound impressed. I believe that the word ‘disappointment’ actually came out. It is in a tone that allows SD to not take it seriously but I wish he could admit that what he does is self destructive and come to terms with why he does it. I would hate for him to think that he some how doesn‘t deserve a good life but I actually think that is what he still believes in spite of all he says that he has dealt with the past and come through it OK.

I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist but I see so much of myself in him. Myself as I was five years ago.

Case in point:

We were in the kitchen early one morning and he was making tea and I was getting my shredded wheat.

He steals a wheatie out of the bowl and scoffs it dry. Looks sheepish.

I say Would you like a bowl? I got lots! Breakfast is good for you. I have yogurt!

He declines saying That’s what I’m afraid of

What? of yogurt? I ask

No, he says, That breakfast is good for me.

Why would someone be afraid of something that is good for them unless they felt they didn’t deserve it. SD does deserve things that are good for him. He is a good person.

And it isn’t just the one self indulgent night out that bothers me. We’ve all been there. It is the fact that if I had been with him he would not have done it. Eventually he will resent this. That he has to do something different and against his regular inclinations when we are together instead of doing his own thing.

He told me last week that he enjoys our weekends together because we go out and do stuff. Even if it is just going to the mall to get a birthday card. We often go for a walk somewhere or a drive. It doesn't really matter what anymore because we are together and that is what matters.
It is what he does day to day to himself, even when we are together, that breaks my heart. It is compounded by the fact that he also smokes. Smoking I can understand though. It is an addiction. He has been doing it since he was nine. I can relate to addiction from my experience coming off the medication. But not this other thing.

Most people would look at it and think nothing of it. I enjoy a pint myself. But one or two on the weekend. Not five or six every night. It doesn't affect his personality but the health implications are more than I can bear. And if it doesn't change soon I know it will get worse. To the point where it does affect him, and his life, his work, and his physical well being.

Part of it is a cultural thing. He only does what is normal for the people around him. But that presents the original problem. His culture won’t change and soon he won’t want to spend evenings at home with me or come out dancing. If I could just get him to TRY the dancing!

We are all adults here. We all make our own decisions. But when someone I care about makes decisions that are harmful to himself I find myself saying those nagging disapproving girlfriend things I hate myself for.

I spoke to my mum and she played devil's advocate. I think they are afraid of me having anything negative in my life because it will hurt me. They are so proud of how I have gotten myself together and manage my illness. They know what a strong person I am and how I might want to give some of that strength to someone else without wanting anything in return. They are afraid of me wearing myself out on a lost cause and getting hurt.

There are radiators and there are drains she says to me. And you are a radiator. You need another radiator.

Mum was quite surprised when I told her about the problem. Not surprised that there was a problem. She had the feeling for a while that there was something off. She was surprised because from what I tell her about SD she thinks he is a lovely man. Lovely because he obviously cares deeply for me and helps me and does wonderful things for me. Maybe I don't tell him that often enough.

SD is worth saving even if I am not the one to do it. I need to confront him with this. To even try to get him to admit that he needs saving may be futile. I dread it. I have searched and searched my heart and even if the confrontation means it is over at least I will have said what I need to say. To tell him I love him and that he is worth saving but if he wants to be saved the only person who can save him is himself.

It is Sunday afternoon now. After talking to the 'rents I cried. Cried because I know in my heart there is nothing else for it. I don't want to hurt SD. I think he has had enough of that in his life. I also don't want to act with out being sure. So much of my life has been determined by faulty chemistry. I want to make sure that if I do something irrevocable it is the right thing and not an impulse driven by hormones or neuro-transmitters.

If I am I this upset I have to start admitting to myself that I love SD. Whatever it is I say and do it will be done with love. He deserves nothing less than honesty from me. Honesty and respect. I love him and it breaks my heart to see him doing something so self destructive because he believes that is the best he deserves.

I know I can't change him. He started down a positive path last summer and that was disrupted. I can't give up until I do all I can do to see him set himself on that path again. Even if it is just to point the way and hope that when he has walked that path for a while our roads meet once again.

What it comes down to is that I want him in my life but he can't be in my life if it is going to affect my mental health in a negative way. I cannot have the pain of watching someone I love slowly kill himself. That would destroy my own soul.

The spark I felt when he walked into the room, that little skip of the heart, I never felt with any one and I don't think that it is something that happens that often in this world. He is such a special person and I wish he could see it. Maybe I don't tell him that enough either.

He has taken some very positive steps that make me believe that he wants a change in his life. He has started exercising. He got his passport. He booked a holiday and is going away on his own for the first time in 12 years. He has started opting for salads in the evenings. I am so proud of him for doing these things not just because they are good for him but because he has done them for himself. It gives me hope. When I no longer have any hope then that is when I will need to ask myself what I am doing.

Thanks goodness for my family. They love and support me no matter what. And even though mum is disappointed by this one thing in him she told me that SD has been so good for me. That he does things for me that many other boyfriends wouldn't and, after I explain all the circumstances, she agreed that he has demonstrated a genuine desire to make a positive change for himself and isn't doing it just because of me.

After talking it over with her I am going to leave it until May. I am going up to his for Easter and we are going to have a really great time just because we are together. Going to help him sort out his garden. I helped the Easter Bunny put together a very special Tunisian Vacation basket for him. Got my refund from EasyJet and can take him out for his favourite Chinese meal. He is not going to go away on his first vacation in over a decade with doubts or an upsetting experience to ruin it.

He will be in no doubt that I do love him and that he deserves to be loved and to have a happy healthy LONG life. We will need to deal with this issue of lifestyles fairly soon and what the outcome will be I don't know. I do know, and I have written this before, that if SD and I had never gotten together I would regret that more than any heart break that might follow. It has been a privilege to know him and I am honoured that he has chosen to care about me.

The bee sting has turned out to be nothing. Not even a mark. I wonder where the bee is now and what it thinks happened. I couldn’t have left him there to die and after all I am not hurt. If I saw another one I would do the same thing. It's just the way I'm wired.

even-star Made a Plan. even-star Sticks to the Plan

2010-03-23T20:47:00.001Z

Yes I made a plan and the plan is to stick to the plan. Part of the plan was to do one cross stitch chart per week no matter how small.

I find that I try to do too much and get bogged down in big ideas with out actually getting anything down on paper.

So here is a very small chart indeed.

A ROYGBIV rainbow of peeps-y chicks.

Maybe once I get good at these small motifs I wil find a bigger project easier to design.

Shared this at Trendy Treehouse

Hancock's House of Happy

2010-03-17T21:06:00.000Z

I made a TO DO list and yes I now have an etsy shop.

Hancock's House of Happy will be opening soon.

I don't know what I will do if I actually sell something.

Freak out I suppose.

All this fiddling about with envelopes and VAT and paypal... I don't know...

GEEEEzus, what about income tax?

One thing at a time one day at a time.

Have you got an etsy shop or other on line shop?

Have you got any tips for a newbie? Did you think about sales tax and income tax when you just started up?How did you deal with them?

Ten Things: even-star Makes a Plan, Shares it with You, Asks for Tips

2010-03-17T13:04:00.001Z

I shared some goals with you last month and I think that I mostly put stuff like this into my blog to remind myself what it is I am doing.

If I didn’t write them down I would forget them.

Well it is time for a bit of a progress report.

Goal number one has been achieved. I have a computer and I have internet access at home.

Goals two and three seem to be slipping away from me. It comes down to time management.

Now at work I am very good at this. Not only do I manage my own time but I also manage the time of a whole team of people. For some reason I seem to be incapable of applying this to myself outside of work.

I will get caught up in life and the moment and all those things I want to work on languish in the Good Idea department until they dry up and die.

I have been putting a lot more time into The Dinner For Two Project. But it is almost too much time. Other things are suffering. My goal of opening a shop this year has not progressed beyond the goal stage.

The book proposal I am not so concerned about because I want to be confident that I have a good product first and hone my writing. That takes time.

I want to put more time into my cross stitch designs and ceramics but where does the time go? I have to keep fit and maintain a long distance relationship on top of everything.

To be honest, as great as SD is, the long distance thing is what is getting in the way. I can’t work when he is down for the weekend. It would be like him going to the office when I visit him. If we lived closer I could have a whole morning or afternoon to myself and then meet up with him later.

But that isn’t how this works and less time with SD is not an option. Nor is skipping the gym.

It is like he came along just at the right time but also just at the wrong time. It is going to take a lot more work to get myself going when I have to factor in (or out) entire weekends when I won’t be producing, writing, or promoting.

So I have decided to organise myself a bit better. If I want to be a brand I need to start running myself like a business.

To this end I have a new set of goals I am going to share here.

1. Get up earlier on weekdays. I can put an hour into writing before I have to get ready for work or even go for a run instead of going to the gym after work.

2. Create a schedule. Figure out how many hours I have that are not spent at work or the gym and define for each day of the week what I will work on and for how long.

3. Do at least one post per week to NotWhatISeem so that I can see my own progress

4. Create a schedule of projects and posts for the D42P and do no more than 3 posts per week

5. Make at least one cross stitch chart per week not matter how small it is. I plan to use free charts to promote my shop and get people to come an see it

6. Find a kiln closer to home

7. Keep better track of my ideas in a notebook that I can carry around with me easily

8. Make a space for working in

9. Go dancing once a month

10. Give myself a certain amount of time each day to just chill out and switch off

I think for me number 8 is going to be the most difficult. I live in quite a small apartment. There is a bedroom, a dining/living room, bathroom, and kitchen.

There isn’t room to have a space dedicated to a home studio/office but there must be something I can do that will allow me to make an area multi-purpose with out too much hassle switching between the different uses.

Number 6 may also prove a bit unrealistic but I am going to try. There are plenty of schools and colleges around here that have the facilities but their policies on usage could be quite strict.

I am optimistic about the first five. I think that those will be achievable even in the next few weeks.

I would be interested in knowing what your time management strategies are.

Do you have to keep a day job and run your blogging and crafting business on the side?

How do you balance keeping up with the workload, family, and having time for yourself?

Regarding the Dinner for Two Project

2010-03-10T17:00:00.001Z

Some of you may follow me here and on my other blog The Dinner For Two Project. I have posted these words there as well regarding that project and a negative experience I have had in the blogisphere:

If you are following this project you may have picked up the link from Trendy Treehouse Follow Me Friday.

I really like this idea and I have seen some really great stuff that people are working on and read about some very interesting and different lives.

Everyone has such a great story to tell.

Unfortunately another blog that I thought I might like and started following has also apparently picked up some great stuff.

From me.

I won't mention names or links here but it was posted just today and it had the words Dinner For Two in it.

I find it difficult to believe it is a coincidence.

While I like to think that all us blogizens respect each other and know the boundaries pertaining to originality and other people's work there is obviously an element out there who will always try to capitalize on this admittedly grey area.

I am actually sorry I have participated in any dialog or tried to reach out to the blogging community in general.

For all you people who come here to learn and share I hope that you know that I respect your work and ideas and that you will continue to come here and help me with this project.

If credit goes to someone else I don't much care at this point as long as I make this the best it can be. It is something I want to do for me. To record my experiences and the great things I have been taught by my family.

Being and artist and writer I have no more important asset than my ideas. Intellectual property is one of the most important assets a person can have. It is the only thing that that really belongs to a person. And though it has no apparent substance it can be stolen. And not only can that be against the law in certain circumstances, it is also just a pretty crappy thing to do someone.

If it IS a coincidence then my bad. I apologize for any aspersions here cast and retract any accusation.

I would, however, just say this:

This blog and its posts have dates. I have emails mentioning the project before it was set up it that were sent to friends and family. If any individual with a startlingly similar idea, let alone name, for a project finds that this idea invites a remunerative response and they publicize it they may be in for some legal trouble.

This really has put me off putting my ideas out there and seeking out fellow bloggers to the point where I would discourage anyone from participating in any sort of networking and community on the Internet.

Can someone out there restore my faith?

New recipes coming soon including an even-star original: Tuna fish cakes!

They are like cakes. Made with tuna fish. YAY!

The Adventures of even-star and Stella Dave Chapter Two: In which our protagonists grow closer through retail therapy

2010-03-09T15:22:00.003Z

I started writing this post about two weeks ago now and about half way through I realized I had barely started. A lot to think about and a lot to say about an interesting weekend.

It is not usually something I would post about here. It is a bit personal and does not involve any projects but I have been encouraged by Blogger Chix's

Don’t know if I will get it all into one post with out boring you. Or myself. I keep getting side tracked. It just keeps getting bigger.

Not that anything interesting actually happened. And that is the interesting bit.

SD was down for a few days and stayed for the weekend.

It all started Friday evening when...

Actually no, it didn't start there. It started on Monday when I was still where I was and he was still where he was.

The power went out.

Sort of.

All the plug sockets in the house stopped working. For apparently no reason. I heard a breaker go but when I checked it looked like all the switches were fine. Turned it all off and on and off and on again. Threw the main. Nothing.

Call the Dad I thought. He will save me!

Epic. Fail.

My phone only works when there is power. Which in itself does not make much sense as it is cordless and the handset itself uses a battery. My cel is a work phone and cannot be used to call Portugal.

It's 7am and I seem to be screwed. I call SD. Didn't even really have think about it. Call SD and all will be well. He talked me through it and tried to help but without seeing the situation he was not able to do much for me.

"So sorry for calling you so early" I apologize

"You know you can call me any time" he says "I am just sorry I couldn't be of more help"

In the end I figure it out and all power was restored. I call SD back and tell him. He laughs. He seems impressed that I was able to sort it out myself and not make a drama out of it. I don't do drama anymore. It wears me out.

"You know you can call me anytime"

Not to talk or chat or whatever (we are both very poor at that) But call me when you are in trouble because I want to be there to help you. Even if I can't be THERE.

That is what FAMILY does.

I realized for the first time that SD takes an interest in my life and my little woes and wants to be there. FOR ME. I realized for the first time that I wanted him to be there too.

Cut to Friday and we are out for dinner with another couple who are mutual friends. We talked about what was going on in our lives as couples. Made plans to maybe spend a weekend all together at SDs. This sort of US and WE conversation is a bit new to me.

After dinner we went home and had a relatively early night.

When we travel up and down to each other's place Friday night is always a late night. This makes Saturday morning a late morning so it was a treat to keep normal hours.

We were up and out by 9:45. And with plenty to do.

SD has been pondering getting a rowing machine for a while and finally decided that he would make the investment. I suggested that since he had made up his mind we could have a look on Saturday.

He injured his knee and had to have surgery last year. It has been hard getting over it for him and he feels the lack of exercise. Before the injury he did several miles of walking and hiking a week but with the joint still fragile he has not been able to get back into it over the winter. He used to row when he was younger and it is the only exercise, apart from the walking, that he really enjoys.

I know it will be good for him but I don’t like to push it.

What is it I say? We are all adults here. We all make our own decisions.

I can’t tell him that he should do this that or the other. It has to be something he has decided is going to be good for him and then experience the positive results for himself without having to worry about any ego shattering "I told you so" from me. I let him know I support his decision and that I think it is a good idea and let him take it from there.

It occurred to me that SD actually might listen to what I say and care about what I think even if he doesn't always take my well meant advice. I think it is because I don't say one thing and then do something else or think that I am better because I do what I do.

I do what I do for my own peace of mind and health. I want him to be happy and I don't think he (or anyone) can be happy without being healthy as well. That is why I am so glad he has made his own decision to start back at something active.

To celebrate our achievement of managing to get out of bed (let alone the house) before 11 I took him out for filthy filthy yummy yummy MacDonald’s breakfast.

I know what you are thinking. Little Miss Healthy Anti-Consumerism spending money at one of the biggest edifices of consumer conformity and cultural hegemony in the universe. You ought to be ashamed.

And I am.

But two or three times a year is not going to kill my principles or integrity or arteries. That much. Plus the irony of having a fast food brekky and then going to a sporting goods store tickled us both.

Sitting at the plastic table watching the steady stream of 30-somethings with children in tow we both commented on how, as kids, we hardly ever went out to eat as a family and never had fast food.

Me: “Did you know that everything at MacDonald’s is made from the same base material? They just add colourings and flavourings and mould it to look like the various foods.”

SD: ”…”

Me: ”Yeah it’s like soy or palm oil or chicken fat or something.”

SD: “Really?”

Me: “No, not really”

I can only tolerate the breakfast menu. In the absence of a decent place that serves up a good old North American breakfast with pancakes and streaky bacon and filter coffee and maple syrup Macky Dee’s is, sadly, the best there is.

Heads up here England: Beans are NOT a breakfast food.

The big sports store at the retail park is one of those places that I only go to when I have forgotten how rubbish it was the last time I was in it. About once a year. It is a huge place but does not seem to really have a lot of useful sporting equipment for sale. But it is the only place locally that I thought would have any sort of gym equipment for SD to look at.

We stroll in and right by the front entrance SD had picks up a very fetching micro fleece shirt.

Me: raises eyebrow

SD”What?”

SD has about 50 shirts.

Deeper into the store and some invisible and inexorable force sucks us down an aisle

It is the hiking boot aisle

Me: raises eyebrow

SD: "What?"

Me: ”Can you hear them? Are they speaking to you?”

SD: “Yes. They are speaking to me”

SD has many talents. One of them is the ability to understand Shoe. They are constantly accosting him from store shelves with demands to be taken home.

He shakes it off and we finally make it, without further distraction, to the heavy equipment area.There are two rowing machines on display. SD picks one and we go in search of a boxed specimen.

SD: “There is no way we are getting that into your car”

Me: “We could try. The seats fold down you know”

SD: “There is no way we are getting that into your car”

So we decide that it would be too big to fit in my car and we can come back on Sunday to get it in his.

We have a bit of a browse around. I have started playing squash with some of the guys from work and needed a cheap racquet.

Me: "What about this one? Only a tenner!"

SD: "That one is aluminum. You are better off not getting cheapest. This one is lighter."

I get the lighter one.

I wonder if, just as I realized that SD cares and thinks about what I say, SD has just realized that I care and think about what he has to say.

SD looks at some camping gear and I look at the snorkel gear and drop a few hints about the Red Sea.

Until last week SD has not had a valid passport for more than ten years.

I like to think that the eyebrow does have some persuasive ability but in the end this is something else he had to decide on for himself. That maybe it would be kind of fun to have the choice of leaving the country if he so desired. And go somewhere he can see me in a bikini.

Our next stop was the computer store.

I have written here recently about how I need to get a computer. To make any progression as a working writer and artist I have to make this investment. This has not been a light decision for me. I don’t earn enough to spend that kind of money casually. It means that I won’t be putting a mortgage payment into my savings account this month.

I did all the research and looked at tons of models and shopped around and finally picked the one I wanted. It was the highest spec I could get for my budget. On Friday I was checking it out online and one of the major retailers had them in stock and for the lowest price. But instead of buying then and there I wanted to have SD’s feedback. He does hardware for a living. And because this sort of financial risk and commitment is really difficult for me I really had to psyche myself up for it. I thought it would be nice to have SD there to carry me out of the store pale and retching when the deed was done.

We go in. Go to the computer area. Find the computer I had decided on. It had come down £20 since yesterday! We browse their other offerings just to make sure. SD thinks that the one I want is the best buy and a very good brand. We ask the little man to bring me one.

Little Man: “Are you replacing an old laptop?”

Me: “No”

Little Man: “What are you going to be using it for?”

Me: “I just want the machine can you please bring me one”

Little Man goes away for five minutes.

SD: “You should have said surfing for porn. Like it is any of his business what you want to use it for!”

My Brain: “YAY!”

Out. Of. Stock.

Not only out of stock at that location. Out of stock everywhere. Literally overnight. They put it on clearance or something.

Little Man:” We have the next model. Would you like to look at that?”

My Brain: ”…”

SD: ”Yeah we looked at that. How much was it again?”

We look at the next model up that they have. About 50 more than I could really afford. And the spec was not really that much better.

Me: ”Can you do it for 600”

Little Man: “Well I need to look at the whole package”

Me: ”I just want the machine”

The little man won’t deal.

So we leave.

SD suggests we go home, have a cup of tea, look online.

I am so deflated and grumpy and tired by this point that I have lost interest in the whole project. I don’t want a computer any more. I never wanted a computer. The one I decided on has been discontinued and there is absolutely no chance of me getting the courage up to go through the whole experience of having to choose again.

SD hugs me and says “Well, let’s go back to the mall sweetheart. I have to get a card”

Me:”uuuhngh”

Even though I live a five minute drive away it probably will not surprise you to know that I hardly ever go to the retail park let alone actually set foot in the mall. I have to be pretty desperate. But SD needed to get a birthday card and I think he thought that if we went there we might have a chance of sorting everything out.

The mall is full of horrible shopping suburban wasteland zombies. Packed on a Saturday. These are the mutants who go there just to have somewhere to go. They browse. They have lunch and browse some more. It is FUN for them. They don’t NEED to be there. They don’t NEED anything. It is just weird.

Anyways SD gets his card and then into a minor existential tussle with a female mutant who fails to acknowledge his existence and he sees that just down the gallery is another branch of Major Electronics Retailer. He looks at me all sad and grumpy.

SD: ”You want to have a quick look? While we are here?”

Me: ”hmmmph”

SD: ”Come on sweetheart. Let’s have a look”

Me: ”urgh”

So we go in and there on the shelf is THE COMPUTER.

SD really is my hero.

This poor uniformed teen geek boy comes up to us all keen and spotty and asks if he can help.

The machine was not the exact machine. It was the one they had to replace the one that was sold out. Sort of midway between the I wanted and the one I could not afford.

The rest is a bit of a blur. Money changed hands. Someone handed me a box. SD, always a gentleman, offered to carry it but I believe I refused.

This was the first time we have spent time together that I felt we weren’t so much dating but were actually a couple. We seemed to just do normal things without feeling like there was a need for some sort of special entertainment.

There were errands to run, tea to be made, support to be given.

I am pretty sure that this is a good thing. I am glad we feel comfortable enough in our relationship that we can just be ourselves. I didn’t feel pressure to put on a show. But also if we aren’t dating anymore that sort of takes the excitement out of it. Doesn't it?

It is almost like I am afraid of falling in love because it could be the last time. And considering it is also the first time I want it to last.

Tis the Seasoning to be Ballsy: even-star Tells It Like It Is

2010-03-03T12:51:00.000Z

"Why is a salt called a salt?" I throw out to the group.

Joaquin gives me one of his looks.

"What?"

I explain "Setting up an application manager database for a new app and the encyrption uses a password salt.Why is it salt and not Tobasco or carrot or telephone?"

"Is because it is like adding a little something to the password to make it better" contributes Felix.

Skeptical I say "Noooooo... you're talkin' shit there dood."

"No, is true! Well it make sense doesn't it?" Felix defends his professional credibility not too convincingly.

"Google will tell us!" I affirm firing up that font of all knowledge and wisdom.

'why is it password salt' goes into the text box.

Good old wikipedia is the first result.

"Well that is just crap. It tells you what it is but it doesn't tell you why it is called a salt. I cannot believe that wikipedia has failed me!"

By this point Jon is starting to take an interest and wanders over.

"Anything you want to know I can tell you." he announces, his skinny shaggy frame looming confidently over me.

I repeat my query. "Why is it a password salt and not a password pepper or chicken or umbrella?"

"Because when you add a salt to your hash it is a little different every time. So you don't get any repeats in the encryption"

Felix laments "isn't that pretty much what I said?"

"Yes but Jon sounds like he knows what he is talking about"

"Well I did used to write encryption software"

"There, you see?"

Felix silently implores the group for some sort of validation. Looks like a man who has given his watch to a magician in front of a large crowd and the trick has gone a bit wrong.

This is an example illustrative of the principle that, in any field, it is far better to sound like you know what you are talking about than actually know what you are talking about.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow: even-star Wonders, Makes a Plan

2010-02-24T11:14:00.001Z

SD took me away for the weekend to Stratford-Upon-Avon. Just a couple days away for a treat. He went to school in that town and grew up in the area. We did lots of driving and drank some very good ale and enjoyed each other’s company. We didn’t do anything Shakespeare touristy. We weren’t really that interested.

The town is pretty with lots of wonky Tudor houses and canal boats and swans, but rather contrived. It is made up for the tourist trade. It was fun to drive about though and see a different country side and hear a different accent.

It is funny when I think about me and SD. I am glad that he came along NOW. And not two or three or five or what ever years ago. Even two years ago I was still coming off the meds and struggling with what they did to my metabolism and weight and brain. I needed to focus on myself for that time. We would never have clicked.

In fact we didn’t click. SD remembers meeting me two years ago when the company he works for got bought out by the company I work for. But I don’t remember meeting him at the same time.

And then I think about how we were so attracted to each other. If I had not been going through what I was for all those years I am pretty sure I would have taken up with someone and settled down by the time we met. I wonder if the attraction would have been the same. And what we would have done about it if it had.

It is fun to think about. And also disturbing to me. Somehow, somewhere, in some other universe there is another even-star living the middle class suburban wife life. Simply because her brain didn’t come out the same. As unhappy as I was would she be as happy as I am now?

I have tried to make this blog more about my projects than about the details of my life. My previous blog was about my on going struggle with dysthymic disorder and recovery from a major depressive episode.

A year and a half later I find my self both mentally and physically fitter than I have ever been in my adult life.

This is not to say the struggle is over. Dysthymic disorder is something I will be living with for the rest of my life. But there are lots of things I can work at to make sure I don’t slip into another major episode.

I have felt a change coming for some time now. Now that I have changed myself to be happy and healthy and confident I want to change my circumstances. I have become quite serious about The Dinner For Two Project and want to turn that into something positive and maybe lucrative. I want to start selling my work. Selling my writing.

This is going to be hard work I know. I have to keep the day job. I have to put the time into the relationship with SD. So it is going to mean that every spare minute of every day I will need to be producing and promoting my work.

The first step that I will be undertaking next month is getting an internet connection at home and a computer. Gotta spend money to make money! But I am hoping that I will eventually bring in enough to pay for the outlay.

The second step is to set up an online shop at etsy or somewhere and make just one sale. If I can make just that one sale then that will give me confidence in my own brand.

The third step is to learn how to write a book proposal. I think The Dinner For Two Project is a good idea. I know that I will be setting myself up for a lot of rejection. But let’s face it. There is A LOT of shyte out there simply because someone had the balls to sell themselves. My idea is no worse than a lot of what is out there so why not have a go?

I think that my goals are fairly modest and achievable. I used to set goals for myself that were so NOT achievable that it gave me an excuse not to do anything about them.

I thought that setting them out here and sharing them with who ever stumbles by would help me stick to a plan. Writing about it makes it real.

It Did Au Coeur To Me

2010-02-24T08:59:00.000Z

A little work in progress that I quite enjoyed stitching. It was a challenge for me to make sure none of the threads showed through on the back and that all the lines were nice and crisp. I am not a very practiced free hand sticher and this took me quite a long time.

It is better to take one's time and get it right. I sometimes find myself rushing things. I have so many ideas in my head and not much time between work and life and relationship to get to them all. But when I take my time the result is so much closer to how I pictured it in my head that it is worth letting some things go.

It is single strand cotton on tulle. Thought the tulle would be a headache but it stiched quite well. Not doubt because it is synthetic and did not snag the thread.

Like the little heart book I did for SD I wanted this to be reminiscent of those onion skin anotomy books with all the cross sections and I think it is going to be part of a bigger, layered piece. For now though I will just let it sit around the house. Look at it. Mull it over. I have so many other projects to be getting on with!

The weather is almost good enough to start thinking about the clay again.

The Dinner For Two Project: Biscuits!

2010-02-11T14:15:00.000Z

New lesson posted over at The Dinner for Two Project:

Baking Powder Biscuits (AKA Scones)

Another versatile solution for modern living brought to you by even-star.

Remember, you saw it here first!

Also do you say sk-AWn or Sk-own? Tell me which and where you are from. Let idiom demographics ensue

The Dinner For Two Project: New Menu Plan

2010-02-08T11:27:00.000Z

Click the link for all you need to know about having a Nifty Nacho Night!

A Heart is for Life Not Just for Valentine's: even-star Is Undecided

2010-02-08T10:48:00.000Z

I find myself in territory that is not only unfamiliar but fairly dangerous. Not just for myself either.

One thing you should know about me before I go on: I have never been in love. I have never said to anyone I was involved with ‘I love you’.

Admittedly I have not really been in a situation appropriate to that sentiment very often. For too many years I felt myself too damaged or even undeserving. To the point where I thought, and sometimes still think, I am incapable of it. My fierce devotion to my family and a few good friends being oft forgotten evidence to the contrary.

I do find myself in an appropriate situation now. In that there is a person and I am more emotionally healthy than I have ever been in my adult life. But is the sentiment there?

If I have to ask myself the question the answer is probably, disappointingly, no.

SD and I agreed no valentines. I have written before about how I feel that this is a grotesque and insidious perpetration of consumerism. People spend money on disposable goods in a desperate effort to simulate culturally sanctioned romance. Like doing what everyone else does because if you don’t you will have failed to live up to some weird consumer society construct of love and romance is sooooooo attractive.

But I found myself inspired to make this, I suppose you would call it anti-Valentine.

There are a couple of issues here.

The first is that I have made something in response to something else that I despise. Does this make me into the very thing I hate?

The second is what do I do with it?

I was going to send it to SD. We agreed no Valentines so I put on the envelope ‘do not open until February 15th’. To make the point that it is NOT a Valentine card but in actual fact it is a Valentine card.

Or is it?

I was going to send it to SD because if I were to have a ‘Valentine’ he would be it.

But then I am not sure if the sentiment it expresses is something I really feel right now.

I do care about SD. We like each other. There is chemistry there. He seems to care for me. We go further, literally, than most other couples would go on so short an acquaintance. The very fact that we are together at that distance must be indicative of something deeper than plain old physical attraction or a mere convenience.

200 miles ain’t convenient.

But am I ready to give my heart up? Have I given it up already?

If I have to ask the question the answer is probably once again, no.

The problem with art is that it does sometimes need context.

The title, for example, would not be as piquant if it was received in the middle of July.

It IS just a witty title. One that I was quite pleased with.

But there is no point in giving it TO someone unless I am sincere. It was made to be given. At some point. Will it matter, when I AM ready to give it, whether or not the drollness of it is diminished by the date on which it is bestowed.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression right now. We both seem to be waiting for something. Perhaps to know our own hearts.

Sending something to someone that implies you are giving them your heart FOR LIFE could be taken quite seriously. I don’t want to freak anyone out.

But then I have to ask myself why I made such a thing unless I did want to give it TO someone. To the person whose address I went so far as to put on the envelope.

I would hate to think that I have finally turned into a fatuous artist whose work is emotionally empty even while it is clever.

From a purely formal view point I was quite pleased with how well this piece turned out. The final product came closer to my idea than I could have possibly have hoped.

Is the only reason I want to send it is so it has an audience? Is it the right audience? Is it the right time? What sort of person would that make me? To give someone the idea of an emotional commitment when really all I want to do is showcase my wit.

I don’t think I can send it now. Even though I know SD would like it. To have something concrete from me that will let him eventually open up.

I have had to ask myself too many questions. Questions I can’t answer. Maybe that is what a heart is. And when you give your heart to someone and they give their heart to you that isn’t the answer it is just that the questions don’t matter anymore.

The Dinner For Two Project: even-star Takes Herself Seriously

2010-02-03T15:40:00.002Z

The Dinner For Two Project has a home of its own!

I am very excited about this.

At the moment I am moving the posts from here over to it so there is not much new to see. Will let you know here when there is something new. Should be soon.

Read all about it!

The Dinner For Two Project

Lucky Number Seventeen: even-star's Colleague Conducts a Survey

2010-02-02T14:25:00.002Z

We would all love to know what Number Seventeen (#17) is on your favourite Chinese take-out's (take-away's) menu.

At the Monsoon number 17 is: Satay Chicken on a Skewer

Can't say as I have had this one.

What is #17 at your favourite Chinese take-out / take-away?

even-star demands to know!

If you live near where even-star lives try the Monsoon. Loads of great dishes and many are not common Chinese take-out fare. Food is great. Support your local community dammit!

Now I bet you are saying "But even-star, what about Dinner for Two? Thrifty and tasty homemade elegance?”

Well I gotta be straight with you. Sometimes it is just nice to have someone else do the cooking. There is no way I would be able to put together the variety of dishes (or make them taste as good) that we can get delivered.

SD loves Chinese food and I am happy to leave it to the experts. Also he likes to pick up the tab.

Who said take-out can’t be thrifty?

The Adventures of even-star and Stella Dave: Chapter 1 - In Which Our Heroes Go for a Walk, Combat the Cold with Curry and Haberdashery

2010-02-01T14:57:00.004Z

Went up to SD's this weekend.

Finally was able to take some photos of the area. He lives in the Peak District of Derbyshire.

Below are some shots from our Saturday hike. Pretty spectacular non?

It was actually more of a pub crawl but it was still very, uh, fit-making. As you can see from the pictures there were some very steep hills!

Weather was very chilly and gloriously sunny. The pace made us warm enough and my toque* kept the cold off.

It was about five miles. We stoked up at the start on curry lunch at the Pack Horse Inn, had a pit stop at a country pub along the way, and finally finished off with a pint of Dizzy Blonde at the Royal Oak in Stines. It was only another mile or so back to his from there and boy were we KNACKERED!

Had Sausage Stuff and Mash for dinner. Yummy.

On the subject of The Dinner for Two Project SD has quite a different approach to cooking than I do. This is partly due to architecture. His kitchen is large and comfortable and opens out into the lounge. So even if he is busy slicing and dicing we can still interact.

My kitchen on the other hand is quite small and at the back of the apartment. It isn't comfortable for someone to sit and hang out in and it is down the hall from the lounge. You end up shouting at each other.

The difference is also partly due to personality.

SD likes the activity of cooking. The end really is second to the means. He derives a great deal of pleasure from the preparation of food.

In other words: he faffs like fuck.

He is perfectly aware of this and does not apologise. And why would one apologise for something they enjoy. It does not bother me because of the comfortable lay out of his house and I like to watch him do his thing. It also means that by the time the food is done I am VERY hungry and can appreciate it to the full. So to speak.

I enjoy the process of cooking too but the difference is I set out to finish. SD sets out to set out.

So when I am at his place food takes on a different role. Although what he makes his always yummy it is more memorable for the time spent together while he is preparing it rather than it being a dining experience.

Both scenarios have their place and I did wish I had the domestic layout to support the sociable preparation of a meal.

*SD does not understand the concept of TOQUE.

Yes it is a hat. But also it is not a hat. It is a TOQUE and that is what it is and there are certain situations in which, even if I had a hat, I would not want to be without TOQUE.

Toque is a state of mind. A physical manifestation of the pioneering spirit. A pragmatic and stylish defiance of the elements.

It says: 'Screw you Winter!' and 'Screw you Fashion-Industrial Complex!' at the same time.

My fellow Canadians will understand!

You Go To My (Radio)Head

2010-01-28T10:54:00.005Z

A very quick little back stitch chart. Took less that a couple of hours.

The allusion is probably a bit obscure but I love the song. Especially that bit at the end. I wanted to capture that pathos.

A lonely plastic tree and floating text like it was scrawled on a post-it during an absent moment in a boring meeting.

Who hasn't thought that at some point about a relationship.

It is not necessarily being what the other person wants for their sake but for your own.

I think it applies for me to the relationship I have with my parents.

They love me unconditionally and have only ever wanted me to be happy. What ever I am doing, where ever I am.

But then for a lot of years happiness was simply beyond me. I wanted to be that happy little girl not for them but because it was what I needed for myself.

It sounds pretty sappy but I could also apply this to Murry. Having Murry to take care of made me a less selfish person at a very critical time in my recovery. He depended on me for everything even up to the point of letting him go and giving him a peaceful and painless death.

If you want to change something about yourself don’t do it for another person. Do it because that other person makes you feel like you deserve all the good things they want for you: happiness and health (mental or physical or both) and love and prosperity.

We have a toast now in our family, since the ‘rents have been in Portugal: Saude, Amour, Dinero.

Health, Love, Wealth.

Until I accepted the astonishing fact that I was actually a good person I didn’t think I deserved any of those things.

If you can’t love yourself how can you expect anyone else to do it for you?

The amazing people I have in my life helped me to see that not only could they want me to be a healthy happy person but that I deserved to want those things for myself.

Dinner For Two Project Basics: Lesson 1 - A White Sauce

2010-01-25T12:52:00.028Z

Nothing like a blank canvas to inspire, uh, inspiration.

Such is a basic white sauce. Once you know how to make the basic model you can dress it up how so ever you please with any of your favourite flavours.

The Ingredients
1. Flour
2. Milk
3. Fat (solid fat like butter or margarine)
4. Salt

The Tools
1. a sauce pan
2. a stove
3. a preferably wooden, spoon
4. a wire whisk
5. A strainer or hand blender if it goes a bit wrong

The Method

1.Put your sauce pan on a medium heat

2.When it is hot add about a tablespoon of butter and wait for it to melt

3. Add two tablespoons of flour and mix with the butter over the heat to form a paste

4. Add a little milk to the paste and whisk thoroughly until smooth

5. Add a little more milk and keep whisking until incorporated and smooth

6.When the liquid in the pan becomes decidedly liquid (as opposed to paste) add the rest of the milk and whisk.

7.Keep it on the medium heat and stir constantly so that it does not burn

8.It will come to a boil and start to thicken up (at most 10 minutes)

9.When it coats the back of a metal spoon it is done

10. Add salt to taste

The Science

The sauce recipe here could also be called a roux based sauce because that is what you call the mixture of flour and melted fat before you add the liquid.

The sauce thickens because the particles of flour absorb the liquid and expand.

If you apply logic here then you will know that too much flour will mean you will need to add more liquid. Not enough flour and your sauce will not thicken.

The fat is there to add flavour and cook the flour before added the liquid.

Cooking the flour in the fat and adding the liquid gradually eliminates lumps. Essentially it gets rid of the surface tension of the flour and liquid so they mix together more easily.

Now there is NOTHING worse than not having a enough sauce. The proportions and measurements here are approximate and make about a pint of sauce so if you need more than that you can increase accordingly.

You will also find that depending on what flour you use the measurements will differ. Find a formula that is best for you but remember the basic science of it and you won't go wrong.

Troubleshooting

The Problem
Sauce will not thicken

This is due to not having enough flour in the roux for the amount of liquid or the flour was not mixed thoroughly enough. Meaning there were not enough flour particles emulsified in the roux to take up the liquid.

The Solution
Dissolve a tablespoon of cornstarch in three or four tablespoons of COLD water and add to the sauce. Cook until it starts to thicken up. This will not affect the flavour.

The Problem
There are lumps
This happens when too much liquid is added to quickly or the flour was not mixed enough with the fat at the beginning

The Solution
Get out your handy hand blender and have at it or simply put through a strainer

The Problem
Sauce is too thick

This can happen if it cooks too long or there is not enough liquid. The sauce will also naturally thicken up as it goes cold. If you are making it up ahead of time and refrigerate it it will go quite thick.

The Solution
Just add some more liquid and stir in.

The Problem
The sauce burns on the bottom of the pan

The Solution
Not much you can do about this after the fact. It happens because the heat was too high and the sauce was not stirred enough. When the sauce won't thicken the temptation is to put the heat up. Be patient! If, on a medium heat, your sauce does not thicken then you most likely did not have enough flour in it. See the solution for that above.

If the sauce does burn don't worry about it. It is a bitch to scrub off but don't be tempted to scrape the bottom of the pan as you will get burnt bits in the sauce.

The Next Step

Now that you know the basics you can make a sauce for just about anything with anything.

I usually go for a cheese sauce. Depends how cheesy you want it but minimum 1/2 cup cheese to a pint of sauce.

Lemon juice is a great addition for fish but make sure you add it after the sauce is cooked as it could curdle the milk.

Add nutmeg for an easy Béchamel sauce that can be used for Lasagna and other casseroles.

Just about any herbs and spices can go in.

You can also add sugar and flavourings. A quick and cheap 'custard' can be made this way with out eggs. Incorporate a little cream after cooking along with some sugar and vanilla essence.

Some yellow food colour will complete the illusion.

Recommendations

This type of sauce has its place and is very good in certain situations. It is best as a pouring sauce for vegetables or as a base sauce for casseroles.

Some people incorporate a stock (like chicken stock) for flavour instead of milk but I prefer to use the cornstarch method for those types of sauces which is how you make gravy. I will post on this in another lesson.

The more fat in the milk the richer the sauce. But steer clear of using actual cream to make it. Cream sauces are an entirely different animal and agian I will post on making a basic cream sauce.

Dinner For Two Project: Food Science and a Tribute to The Mom

2010-01-25T12:46:00.002Z

I know I promised on twitter that I would be posting Friday night’s culinary exploits but after writing them out I realized that I need to get a bit more organized.

A few words of explanation that may help explain the lovely little mystery that is even-star.

Both my mom and dad are great cooks. My dad is self taught. My mom, on the other hand, is a honest to goodness qualified domestic scientist.

Now there are a lot of people who scoff at domestic science (AKA home economics) but maybe that is because who ever ends up in that field these days is not required to have the same sort of education that my mum and others, mostly women, of her generation were required to have.

Food science is probably not something a lot of people think about but it is part of just about everything that we eat.

I am not a food scientist but learned from my mom that there are basic formulas that will help you to make your cooking and baking more successful. If you know how food works you can make food work for you. So to speak.

I use these formulas all the time which is why a lot of the recipes I am going to post are not quite exact. I know how food works which means that, as long as I follow some basic principles, I don’t always need to have a recipe in front of me.

For example I know that if you mix flour and a liquid together and heat it up the flour particles are going to soak up the liquid and expand and thicken the liquid.

If you know this is how flour and liquid behave when heated together you know how to make a basic white sauce. There a certain proportions of flour to liquid that you need to know but it doesn’t have to be 100% exact.

So I have decided to pass on some of what my fantastic and talented mom has taught me by sharing the basics of cooking and baking.

Once you know the basics you can start having fun by adding your own twist to things.

So as part of the Dinner For Two project I will be posting some of my food science knowledge that you can refer to.

Dinner For Two: In Which even-star Improvises, Explores Idea for New Project

2010-01-15T13:03:00.014Z

Have been referring in my posts recently to someone who I would reluctantly call 'my boyfriend'. Reluctantly because it really is a very inadequate and immature term for an adult relationship*.

Can't remember if I have said that he lives 200 miles away.

Well, he lives 200 miles away. Or I live 200 miles away. Whatever. Either way it is 200 miles.

On a Friday evening in rush hour traffic that is about four and a half hours.

So yeah, we probably don't see each other as often as we would like. I can't just call up and say "Fancy coming 'round to mine for dinner tonight? Cookin’ meatloaf!"

The situation is in no way helped by the fact that I tend to travel and he sometimes has to work weekends. I have been known to do this as well but not so much. This would not matter if we were ten miles apart. We could just do what we gotta do and then meet up Saturday evening.

200 miles isn't a just-pop-over distance.

It is bloody hard work.

And even though I know that he is perfectly well aware of the fact that if we didn't make that drive there would be no relationship to work at, I always appreciate that he does make the drive as often as I do. More often really since he comes down here for work.

So 200 miles and two careers makes the time that we do have together special and I like to make it a bit of an occasion if I can.

One of the ways I do this is by cooking a meal for at least one of the evenings he is here. Usually the Friday. I never cook for myself but really do love spending time in the kitchen concocting something splendid for an appreciative audience.

This weekend I thought I would try to have a proper sit down three course supper.

Went through all my recipe books for inspiration and really enjoyed making lists of things I wanted from the store and then cooking up a storm.

I found when looking at recipes though that so many that looked good posed the following problem: serves 6

I don't want to cook for 6 or 4 or 8. I want to cook for 2. I don't have a big freezer so even if freezing were an option (which can ruin some foods) I can't make up for six and save what we won’t eat.

The ingredients for 6 also cost more. And to be honest I am a tight bastard. I love to cook for SD but it can’t cost more than going out for dinner. I mean, the whole point of eating in is that it costs less. And is more intimate etc blah blah blah.

The other problem? Time in the kitchen. When SD turns up I don't want to be fussing over pots and pans. It all has to be made up in advance as much as possible or take minutes to cook and put together on the night.

I have examined what I have done in the last few months food-wise when he has come down to see me and I think I might try documenting my successes and failures. There MUST be other people in the same situation.

I am sure there is a website out there that covers this subject. But I can't really be bothered to check. To be honest I find a lot of food sites quite specific and clinical. I like to improvise in the kitchen. Exact amounts and ingredients are not really important. I find something that sounds good and, for the most part, use what I have around. Or if I fancy something I will put it in whether the recipe calls for it or not.

Case in point:

For dessert I made strawberry shortcake. This could just as easily be peach or blueberry or avocado or what ever one would prefer or has on hand.

I happened to have some Port in the house for the strawberry mixture. Now a recipe (and I didn't really use a recipe for this) would call for X amount of Port. But who really has Port on hand? It should all be optional or acceptable alternatives should be given. I would not expect someone to go out and buy a whole bottle of Port because they will need 2 teaspoons of it. That is just silly.

I think a lot of people don't cook because they will look at a list of ingredients and find they don't have half of them. Instead of knowing that substitutes are perfectly fine they just won't bother.

So I will start posting up my culinary exploits. I will also post recipes that I have modified to make just enough for two.

Who knows? Someone may find it useful.

This week's special Friday Night Supper For Two:
Steamed asparagus in Easy Hollandaise Sauce with Quick Dill Cheese Bread
Stuffed baked chicken breast with roasted veg and cherry tomato salad
Strawberry shortcake

Starter:
Steamed asparagus in Easy Hollandaise Sauce with Quick Dill Cheese Bread

Asparagus Ingredients
12-16 spears of Asparagus (6-8 spears each)

Asparagus Method
1.Cut off the tough end bits
2.Bring water to a boil in a pot big enough to hold your steamer.
3.Put asparagus in steamer and then in pot of boiling water
4.Steam no more than four minutes. Test after three.
5.Remove and plate up immediately with sauce to serve warm

Sauce Ingredients
1 egg yolk (don't worry you will use the white in something else later)
Lemon juice (to taste but maybe four tablespoons in all)
Olive oil (or some other light tasting oil maybe two tablespoons)
Butter (about two tablespoons melted)

Sauce Method
1.Melt butter in microwave
2.Whisk in lemon juice
3.Keep whisking and drizzle in the egg yolk (this is so the still warm butter won't curdle it)
4.Whisk in olive oil

Quick Dill Cheese Bread Ingredients
1 cup brown flour
1 cup multigrain flour
1 tsp sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 cup grated cheese (any kind you like as long as it is fairly hard and dry. Cheddar or parmesan work well)
Herbs or other flavouring (Dill, paprika, sundried tomatoes, chili, oregano...)
1 egg
1 cup of beer or milk or water or any liquid (beer gives a good flavour and helps rising action)
3 tsp oil or melted shortening ( I am lazy and use oil because I can't be bothered with measuring and melting a solid fat. I bet Ghee would work well too!)

Butter for serving

Quick Dill Cheese Bread Method
1.Prepare your loaf pan by oiling it
2.Preheat your oven to 350-375
3.Mix your dry
4.Mix your wet
5.Pour the wet on the dry and fold together until JUST combined. It is ok if there are lumps and dry bits. The trick is to not over mix.
6.Put in loaf pan and spread evenly
7.Bake until a knife comes out clean. About 30 minutes

Asparagus and Sauce Notes
The ingredients here for the sauce makes just enough for two.

Asparagus is a very sexy dish. Especially if you eat it with your fingers.

If you don’t have a steamer you can put the asparagus in the water and just boil it but the colour won’t be as good.

If you fancy something lighter skip the sauce and sprinkle with sea salt and lemon juice.

If you fancy something easier drizzle with olive oil and grate some parmesan cheese over top.

Bread Notes
This is a quick non-yeast bread similar to a muffin batter. You can use any kind of flour but the multi grain has a rich flavour. You can also include what ever flavouring you want. You can even add your own grains. For something lighter leave out the cheese or try a different kind. For this batch I added some chopped up sun dried tomatoes.

When making this kind of bread there are a few things that will not bear improvisation: you will always need baking powder which is the rising agent and you will need an egg to bind it.

You probably won't get by with less than two cups of flour unless you want to halve the recipe.

This will make bread for more than two people. So you can halve the ingredients to make a smaller loaf. Or serve the rest with dinner on Saturday!

Main
Chicken breast stuffed with mushrooms and brie
Roasted Veg
Onion and Tomato Salad

Chicken Ingredients
2 medium sized chicken breasts. Boneless.
¼ Sweet onion. (you will use the rest in the salad)
50 grams brie (or camembert or goats cheese or any other kind of cheese that is not going to be too watery. For example cream cheese or ricotta probably would not work as well)
4 or 5 Button mushrooms (fresh or canned)
2 tbsp Herbs de Provence or any other flavouring you think would go well
1 egg white (remember from the sauce?)
2 tbsp milk
1 cup breadcrumbs
½ cooking onion sliced
Olive oil or butter to cook the sweet onion

Chicken Method
1.Butterfly your chicken by slicing almost all the way through each breast HOROZONTALLY.
2.Lay flat and pound not too vigorously so that they are an even thickness and set aside
For the Stuffing
3.Heat a frying pan and add a little oil.
4.Add the onion and cook until soft.
5.Add about 2tbsp of the breadcrumbs and 1 tbsp of the herbs and stir until combined. Set aside to cool a bit.
6.Divide mixture in half.
7.Slice up the mushrooms thinly
8.Divide the brie into two equal portions
For each breast
9.On one half of the flattened chicken breast put ½ of the onion mixture, then half the mushrooms, then top with ½ the brie
10.Fold the breast over so the stuffing is sandwiched between the two halves
11.Cut the cooking onion into slices and place in the bottom of the roasting pan so that there is an even layer of onion slices
12.Mix together the egg white and the milk in a shallow dish (you will be dipping the prepared chicken in this) and put the remaining bread crumbs and herbs on a plate and mix those (then you will be dipping the chicken in this).
13.Dip one side of the breast in the milk/egg mixture and then in the breadcrumbs.
14.Dip the other side in the milk/egg mixture and then in the breadcrumbs.
15.Make sure there is a nice thick even coating
16.Place the breast on top of the onion layer in the roasting pan
17.Bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes. The chicken should be cooked through and nicely browned.

Roasted Veg Ingredients
2 medium size Carrots peeled and cut into finger sized pieces
6 new potatoes cut into quarters
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Sea salt

Roasted Veg Method
1.Cut up the veg as advised above
2.Put in a shallow roasting or casserole dish
3.Drizzle on oil and vinegar and season with salt and toss to coat the veg
4.Roast at 375 for 30-40 minutes

Sweet onion and cherry tomato salad Ingredients
¾ sweet onion sliced
20 small cherry tomatoes
2 tbsp Olive oil
1tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
Nam Pla or salt to taste

Sweet onion and cherry tomato salad Method
1.Slice the onion and put in your salad bowl
2.Cut tomatoes in half and add to the onion
3.Put on oil, vinegar, and nam pla (or salt) and toss to coat

Chicken Notes
Basically you can stuff the chicken with whatever you want. We are all adults here. We all make our own decisions. However be sure to include something that adds moistness. Cheese is good. Bacon works as well.

Roasted Veg Notes
Do not be tempted to dress the veg in advance as opposed to on the night. The vinegar and salt will pickle them and they will shrivel up.

The veg can be what ever you want but bear in mind that the point of this menu is to make things easy. Cutting the veg small means that they can cook for the same amount of time as the chicken so you can put them in and take them out at the same time.

Salad Notes
Nam Pla is thai fish sauce. You can use salt to taste instead or soy sauce or garlic salt or anchovy paste. Anything to give a bit of saltiness and flavour.

As with the veg do not be tempted to make all the salad up in advance and dress it. It will go very watery.

You can also use any kind of tomato.

In fact you can do what ever you want with the salad. Something chilled and crunchy is a nice contrast to the rest of the dinner.

Dessert
Strawberry shortcake

Cake Ingredients
2 cups plain flour
¼ cup sugar
5 tsp baking power
½ cup butter (chilled)

5 tbsp milk
1 egg

Filling Ingredients
300 grams Strawberries
Sugar to taste
Optional: Port, vodka, strawberry syrup
150 ml whipping cream (or more if you have, uh, other ‘activities’ planned for that evening)

Method
For the Cake
1.Put all dry cake ingredients in a bowl
2.Cut in the butter until mixture resembles fine bread crumbs
3.Mix egg and milk together and add to the dry bowl
4.Mix until all the dry is taken up and a soft, fairly smooth dough forms. Will take less than a minute
5.Press into a greased 8 inch cake pan
6.Bake at 350 until browned on top and a knife comes out clean
For the Strawberries
7. Hull and quarter strawberries and put in a bowl
8. Sprinkle with sugar and anything else you want to add and let macerate at least over night so there is a nice glaze/syrup formed
9. Whip the cream until stiff
Put it all together!
10. Cut the cake in half HOROZONTALLY and use a cookie cutter to cut out four equal pieces
For one serving
11.Place one piece of cake on a plate and drizzle with a bit of Port or syrup from the berries
12. Spread with whipped cream and layer with some strawberry mixture
13. Top with second piece of cake
14. Spread more whipped cream on top
15. place half the remaining strawberry mixture on the plate beside the cake
16. bestow half the remaining whipped cream how so ever you like
17. Chill and serve

Cake Notes
You can halve this recipe as these amounts will make enough cake for four or five
Like the bread you won’t get away with less baking powder or flour or egg
You can substitute baking margarine for butter but it must be BAKING margarine

Strawberry notes
The port, vodka, strawberry syrup (or any other flavouring) is recommended here for out of season berries that may not have the best flavour.

You can use whatever fruit you want and even use ice cream instead of whipping cream. But where is the fun in that?

The Plan

The day before:
Starter
Wash and cut asparagus, place in steamer
Make up sauce and refrigerate
Make bread

Main
Prepare chicken to step 16. Cover and chill in fridge.
Prepare veg to step 2. Cover and chill in fridge
Prepare salad to step 1. Cover and chill in fridge

Dessert
Complete to step 8. Store the cake in a plastic bag or tight container so it won’t dry out and cover the strawberries and put them in the fridge.

On the night:
An hour or two before dinner (or before your guest arrives)
Take the chicken and veg out of the fridge preheat the oven to about 350
Take the Hollandaise out of the fridge
Complete the rest of the steps for the veg except the roasting
Complete the rest of the steps for the salad and plate up ready for the chicken and veg to come out of the oven
Complete the rest of the dessert steps and chill

Just before you are ready to eat:
Steam the asparagus and put the chicken and veg in the oven together.
Warm the sauce on medium setting.
Slice the bread and warm it in microwave
Plate the asparagus and pour over sauce to serve warm
Eat with your fingers!

During dinner:
Take your time over your starter. Have a glass of wine and relax. The chicken and veg will take about 40 minutes.
Take the chicken and veg out of the oven and plate and serve. Takes less than a minute!

After dinner:
The dessert should be all ready to go in the fridge. It can stay there as long as you take over dinner. Just bring it out when you are ready.

The Results
I was fairly happy with the results but I found the shortcake rather dry following a main meal that omitted any kind of sauce or moist-ish side dish.

The recommendation that you do not dress the roasted veg a day in advance came out of this experience. I did add the oil and vinegar and salt and it did shrink and pickle the carrots. Still tasted ok but didn’t look great.

SD ate everything but the cake but was too polite to say anything. We were both rather full by the time we got to dessert. He is not a cakey person. It was the wrong time of year for strawberries but it looked so good in the recipe book. I will try this again in the summer perhaps.
You could probably get away with one largish chicken breast instead of two medium ones and divide it after baking. After butterflying and stuffing one breast does come out to be a rather large portion.

I was away from my guest for, at most, 5-6 minutes all told to do the asparagus, plate up the main course, and get the dessert out of the fridge.

So much was done in advance that I did not spend an hour washing up after dinner. It was done in five minutes on Saturday morning.

As well as being easy to roll out I wanted this meal to be light. He got in at around 9:30pm so a big rich meal would not have sat well. Especially since we had, er, other things to be getting on with that a rich heavy meal might make uncomfortable.

The Cost
Total cost for any ingredients I did not already have in the house came to about £10. So with all the other bits and bobs on top of that you are probably looking at about £6-£8 each for a three course meal. And I have cake and bread left over!

*But I cannot seem to come up with one that a) describes it better and b) does not make me throw up a little bit in my mouth

The fellow in question, referred to here and elsewhere as SD (not his initials) is not a boy and although we are friends we are also more than friends.

Lover? Seems to leave out the friend part

Man Friend? Seems to leave out the fantastic sex part

Life Partner? We are not married, we don't live together and have not discussed either of those things as possibilities.

Mr? Essex men have a very bad habit of referring to the women they are sleeping with, living with, or even just dating as their Mrs. Women they are not, in fact, married to. There is no relative term other than Mr to refer to the male member of these relationships and it is not used. Even if it were used it does not imply nearly as much the impression of ownership that the feminine title for a married woman carries.

Significant Other? This term is just stupid. Other what? Significant? WTF does any of that even mean. In so many ways this is worse than 'boyfriend'.

Christmas with even-star

2010-01-12T13:02:00.003Z

Just a few photos today of Christmas things before they are out of date.

Glad I decided to put up the tree this year considering what happened to keep me on my own for Christmas day. It really cheered the place up as well. I put the Christmas cards I got on it and I liked the effect.

Got a lovely little angel ornament from blogizen Christine of Crumpled Paper. She is a very talented artist and crochet-er!

SD surprized me with a unique gift that I love. A carved wood bowl. I keep my onions in it. Not sure if this is a good idea as it seems every time I make myself cry chopping onions I am thinking of him.

That is it really. I have some photos from Portgal as well but I will post them some other time as they are not specifically festive.

Not a very exciting post I know but it can't be all jet set all the time!

Various Battles with Inclement Weather, Poor Customer Service, Holiday Cheer, Capricious and Cruel Gods: In Which Shit Happens

2010-01-04T09:50:00.002Z

I’ll be straight with you: I have had better vacations.

In my previous post I mentioned how I was going to go to Portugal to see my family for Christmas.

Almost didn’t happen. In fact, technically, it didn’t happen. I was not there for the 25th of December. I was meant to fly out on the 22nd. Get to the airport and they tell me the flight is cancelled.

Now I know this kind of thing does happen. It just never happened to me before. I would imagine that it was likewise a new experience for a fair few of the other thousand or so passengers who had their flights cancelled the same morning.

Something to do with the weather. The weather that morning was perfectly fine and all kinds of planes were taking off. People were checking in at the Easyjet counters but for some reason I was not one of them.

Their solution for the thousands of angry, tired, trying-to-get-somewhere-for-Christmas people they shafted at very short notice? One person with a single sided A4 hand out advising us all that we could ‘Go on the Internet to find another flight’.

This is customer service Mr. Easyjet? You have hours, if not days, of notice that the weather is totally going to screw up your schedule and you can’t put a few extra people on a few extra desks to get people where they have to go for CHRISTMAS?

I was appalled. We were all appalled I think. People were frantically trying to get change to put into one of the six internet stations in the north terminal. They were lined up six deep.

Rather than battle all the negativity I just picked up the car and went home.

Actually I went to work first to find another flight.

How embarrassing. You tell everyone you are going on holiday and then they see you in the office the next day.

Easyjet did say that they would refund the cost of alternative travel arrangements so I made some. But there was not a flight to be had until the 26th.

I had already called the ‘rents from the airport and they were very disappointed. So was I! But once I got another flight we all calmed down a bit and thought about what Christmas actually is.

Christmas in our family has simply always been a day of the year that means being with your loved ones and celebrating your good health and happiness and the fact that the solstice has passed and Spring is coming.

So to be on my own for this festive time was a bit depressing. I had a Christmas on my own a couple years ago. Not. Fun.

But the day is just a day. Christmas can be when ever you want so long as the people you love are there.

So we had Christmas eve on the 26th when I arrived and Christmas on the 27th.

Mind you I had the four days in between to contend with. I stayed in the house as much as possible. The thought of navigating all those crowds full of festive consumerist frenzy really did not appeal. One of the reasons I love Christmas in Portugal so much is that it is a bit of a non event. People celebrate it but there isn’t all the crazyness that starts MONTHS in advance.

I love a lot of things about Portugal and specifically the Algarve where the ‘rents live. Great climate most of the time (more about that later), great people, eating out is dirt cheap, the fish and fruit are fantastic, cost of living is very low.

I thought quite a lot this time about what it might take to move out there.

We had a lovely Christmas even if it was pouring rain. Torrential rain. Rain like I, (a Vancouverite!) could not believe. Most of the country was under water. Crops ruined. Homes flooded. We had the power go out for an hour and some leaks and counted our blessings!

Spent most of the time reading cook books in front of the fire. Went running. Window shopped in Loule with Mum. Looked at the Christmas lights in the towns. Did lots of sexting. Made the best of a situation that really, when you think about the state of the rest of the world, we could not complain about.

They treated me to a new years eve out a great place down the road (CIG) and we had champagne and fireworks with family and friends. I don’t generally do new years and had a great time.

The next day I had to be up an on a plane. I also had quite a long drive at the other end as I was going to see S-D after not seeing him for two weeks. Was so looking forward to it. Thought that maybe since I would be there earlier than usual on the Friday we would have a really nice long weekend together.

Well guess I got that a bit wrong.

Friday night I was fine. Tired but feeling myself. S-D had something on his mind because he was not himself. I am not the kind of person to press for a confidence if someone doesn’t want to talk about it and some people don’t feel better for sharing. I wish I had a least asked.

I probably would have if I hadn’t spent the next 24 hours in bed. And I don’t mean in bed in a good way.

Who knows where you pick something like that up. Just spent three hours on a plane after not much sleep followed by a chilly four hour drive including a stop at a service station. Could have been ANYthing.

What does it matter now. Spent most of what was meant to be a lovely Saturday with my lovely boyfriend puking. Poor fella. Already stressed out and then a sick woman to contend with. I felt so bad. Not just for myself either. He was very understanding and brought me ginger ale and dry toast and sweet tea.

He also got my car out of a snow drift.

Well, ok, maybe SNOW DRIFT is a bit of an exaggeration but it did snow pretty much all Friday night and Saturday. I was a bit concerned that I might get stuck. He lives in very hilly country and it isn’t fun to drive in those conditions. He got my car turned around and down a rather icy steep hill and then had to walk all the way back up to his house in the cold! All this after having me ill and good for nothing.

I suppose there comes that time in a relationship when you come face to face with the human in the other person. You see them when they are sick or angry or grief stricken and it isn’t pretty. And you figure out that what you care about in them isn’t the pretty but the real person. Or maybe you figure out that you only wanted the pretty and that is that.

Since I am not that pretty to begin with I don’t think the puking did much damage.

So is there a moral to this rambling narrative? Not really. It is just a bunch of stuff that happened. But it has made me think about how I handle certain situations now. I am sure a few years ago I would have been a quivering crying mess at the airport.

It was upsetting. No doubt about that but surely there are worse things that are more worth being really upset over. My house was not under water. My family is healthy. I think S-D cares about me even when I am at my least pretty.

It is tempting to assign these minor ‘tragedies’ some sort of origin. Like the universe suddenly focuses on you for a moment and puts all that energy into royally screwing you over. But how conceited is that?

Shit happens.

An Unexpected Post: even-star Winds Down, Lights Up, Bakes Cookies

2009-12-16T11:10:00.008Z

Always the same this time of year. People have run out of money to spend on cutting edge integrated document management solutions until they get their budgets for January.

This means I don't have much to do except blog and do a little surfing and do estimates.

I thought it might be a good time to reflect on the past year. But then I thought that would be quite boring. Most of what went on this year in my life has already been posted here.

I remember writing here once or maybe on the other blog about New Year's Resolutions. That one year I promised myself that I would try to be kinder and more understanding with people. As false and generally retarded as I think 'New Years' is I am going to renew that pledge. I think it has made me a more positive person and so, in turn, a happier person.

I don't always keep that promise but I do try. And sometimes I think one has to just accept the fact that some people cannot be helped. No matter how understanding you try to be they are either rude or terminally stupid and just don't care how difficult they make your life.

But then how many of those people are you going to remember in a year's time?

This past year was really focused on getting myself healthy and I think that I am finally going to be able to accept myself and be happy with myself as simply a fit and healthy person who is actually CAPABLE of BEING happy. For a very long time I didn't think I was and was resigned to that.

When I consider how I think about life now and how I approached it up to a year ago...

Some things have not changed. I am always going to be reclusive. I like my own company and the company of the few people who I have let get close to me. Mostly my family.

The last couple of years I have come to realise who will always be important in my life and who never mattered even though it might have seemed different at the time. My mum sent out her Christmas cards this year with a sort of free verse poem to update all their loved ones on family goings on. I was quite pleased to see that I figured several times. I got to spend a lot of time with them this year and will be going to Portugal for the festive season.

Strong emotions still have very negative connotations for me. Depression augments emotions (to stupid proportions) and even though I have this under control now, I fear it. If I find myself feeling strongly about anything I shy away from it. Either because it has the power to harm me (or put me in a situation where I could damage myself) or I associate it with sliding back into that abyss.

That is what I really fear and that is what is going to take the longest to get over. This isn't something I can resolve to improve. It is just going to take time.

And there are lots of lovely things to fill that time with!

Blogging for example.

Decorating my Christmas tree with the bells my grandfather gave me and with the salt dough ornaments mum and I made together.

Baking gingerbreads like we did when we were kids and icing them in the most magnificently half-assed way.

Going to the gym and keeping fit and healthy so I can travel and see my family and look nice on the arm of a lovely, kind, and generous man who is proud to be with me. Taking him up to London town for the day for some Christmas shopping.

Populating the house with creatures.

Sipping coffee at my desk.

Planting flowers and nurturing tomatoes.

Lardassing around the pool drinking cheap cava and counting the humming bees.

In the end that is all there is isn't there? Time. So short a time too to taste all that is bitter and sweet. The smell of cloves and ginger and good French cheese, the feel of leather or velvet or skin, a look, a word, the sound of a laugh, a hot wind by the sea. Moments that run like water through the hand. Too fast.

The bitter and the sweet and another year gone by.

Happy Birthday: In Which even-star Makes a Present, Does Some Driving, Continues to Question her Sanity

2009-11-30T13:17:00.008Z

Anything and everything I could write here I have already run through in my head a 100 times and still none of it makes much sense. Being parked on the M1 for two hours has an unfortunate way of leaving one alone with one's thoughts.

The following, however, is a sample of how relentless and impeccable my mighty robo-logic can be at times:

I ask you. How can anything so obvious be refuted?

It can't.

That's how.

At least it makes me feel like I am in control when really I think I am just going to get hurt. Fortunately I am still pretty much beyond caring whether I get hurt or not. His delectable ass is definitely a factor.

I like birthdays. Sometimes people need to be reminded that they are worth celebrating. It was his birthday and I think he liked his present.

I like it too. I liked doing it and it turned out better than I expected. I might do some more shirts on hangers but with different phrases.

There is something about the shirt on a hanger motif that is a bit erotic. Like if it is on the hanger then there is a delicious man somewhere who isn't wearing a shirt. It also means that there is a delicious man somewhere who does the ironing and hangs up his clothes. (Did it just get warm in here?)

The Big S: even-star Purveys Stitching Pleasure via Mr. X Stitch

2009-11-30T13:07:00.003Z

Another mention from the amazing Mr. X Stitch

Check it out!

This was a little project I did for my desk after someone said that I actually say this all the time at work.

As well as his site Mr X Stitch is part of an amazing group on Flickr called Phat Quarter which is where I post my work. So many talented artists there.

Go. Go there now! even-star commands it!

Donnez-moi L'Appareil: In Which even-star Goes to Paris, Does Some Sexting, Takes a Few Photos

2009-11-19T15:09:00.002Z

Went to Paris. Finally. Fantastic.

Will do a write up when I have some time but I think the photos do it justice

Bring It On: even-star Drinks Beer, Gets Lucky, Learns About Geography

2009-11-11T08:40:00.011Z

I have recently found myself in a rather unexpected romantic entanglement and come to the conclusion that where these things are concerned we don't make choices. Life chooses us instead.

If I were going to choose, like list out all the pragmatic practical things I would want/not want the situation probably would not tick an awful lot of boxes.

We've known each other in a distant professional capacity for about a year but one day (maybe not the same day) I think we just looked at each other and decided we needed to tear each other's clothes off. But were just not sure how to navigate the whole professional capacity thing.

A mutual professional acquaintance basically just came out and said it was stupidly obvious to everyone but ourselves that we liked each other and needed to sort ourselves out.

All the usual common sense things just got totally steam rolled under this overwhelming chemical reaction.

Is it a bad idea? Am I going to hurt myself?

I have decided that I really don't care. I am going to live it and enjoy it NOW because for the last few weeks I have realised that the only thing that matters in a person is whether or not being with them has made life better than it could have been if none of it had ever happened. That maybe you feel like you have made them happy by just being yourself. Even if it was only for a day.

What is it I keeping telling myself? One thing at a time one day at t time. And that is how I am going to take this. No past. No Future. Just today. As much as I couldn't imagine myself doing these crazy things I would not want to imagine how much I would have regretted making a common sense choice instead of letting life choose me.

Plus he has this really delectable ass. And the MOST delicious accent.

Did this little sampler for him as a remembrance for a lovely weekend we spent together. Classy eh?

If You Don't Tell Me What You Want, I Can't Help You: even-star Has Nothing Better to Do

2009-10-21T18:49:00.006+01:00

I am posting because I am stuck at the office waiting for data for a "critical" campaign.

Yes that's right! The lady geek works hard for the monies.

Don't think I post much here about what I actually do to pay the mortgage and keep myself in the style to which I am accustomed to keeping myself.

I only have one job title: Systems Architect

But I do several jobs:

1) I am manager of the web team. This is the team in the company that builds custom Internet based business applications. I stupidly volunteered for this position a few years ago because the team got too big not to have a manager and I was bored at the time. I manage their projects and the scheduling and the account managers and clients and deadlines and personnel BS. The job has grown as I have grown into it.

2) I am, in fact, by practice and by trade, a systems architect. I write specifications for Internet based business and print systems: the database architecture and schema, the use cases, the user interface, the deployment model, what text the client wants in their system generated emails, anything and everything to do with system requirements.

3) I am a project manager. Over and above the big picture of the entire schedule for the team I am generally at any given time involved in managing a specific project. Always something I have spec'd myself.

4) I am a quality assurance specialist. This means I have to test the applications that the team builds. I am not so involved in this area now as I used to be except when there is a new development due to go live. But I have to help the client set up test logs and plans and make sure they get turned around.

5) I am a psychiatrist. Men have egos. Maybe not more than women but different from women. You don't need to tell a woman she is the best thing ever to get her to do her job. When you are managing men who know how good they are at what they do there are a lot of prima donna tantrums to avert.

6) I am an ice queen. I am not there to be liked. I am there to do my job. I do not pity the weak or stupid because through their incompetence we lose revenue and the team gets a bad rep in the business. I yell at people. I have made at least one grown 'man' cry. I say no. I demand that people be specific and put it in writing. I do not pick up the slack of others.

Bottom line: there aint a lot of girls in IT. And when you are a girl in IT you have to be fucking careful when, miracle of miracles, you somehow find yourself in charge of a lot of men in a room full of men whose respect you need to get anything done let alone get a raise.

Guys in my web team I can pal around with because I have to be one of the guys in order to get the respect. But to anyone else I have to be stone cold. People can take this personally when it isn't.

I have a couple friends from work I sort of go out with now and then and they tell me that out of the office I am a totally different person.

Well, duh. I would hope that someone who has a degree in art history, embroiders, cross stitches, sculpts, plays violin, runs miles, crochets bunnais, smooth jives (when not stuck at work), bakes beautiful muffins, raises space tomatoes, cries at sad animal stories, and can put away three pints of Stella with out blinking would not be the same person she has to be for eight hours a day in an office. And that is not showing off. That is just an affirmation of all the things I am that very few people know about.

This is why I don't write much about work here except when it upsets me in some way. I am not that person. I even have a different name when I am at work.

It is sort of interesting to see what all I do written out like that. I have never done that before. A sort of stream of consciousness resume.

I like my job. We have fun here. How many people can get up in the morning and KNOW that they are going to have a pretty good laugh that day? If I gotta work that's the kind of work I want.

But I tell you what. If you tell anyone here that I am not a total bitch and have an art history degree I WILL cut you.

Seasonal Specialties: even-star Tells a Joke

2009-09-25T13:08:00.007+01:00

Q:What do you get when you mix together clay, water, and a cremated psychiatrist?

Not much posting lately. I think it has to do with the time of the year. I am generally more cheerful in summer because of the longer day light hours. So no need to do as much writing. I tend to be out of doors more as well. Especially on the weekends. Doesn't give me much time for cross stitch or painting or sculpting.

Now that the equinox has passed and the days are getting shorter I will be working on more stuff. There isn't much else to do when it is dark at 6pm except get out the needle and thread and do some stitching or make Bunnais.

The last batch of creatures has left me a bit dry in the sculpture department. Can't seem to get the clay to do its thing and reveal what it wants to be. It just kind of sits there all grey and lumpy and silent.

I suppose being grey and lumpy and silent is what most people would consider normal behaviour for clay but I am not like most people. When it doesn't speak I get frustrated and can't stand looking at it anymore. We're like an old married couple.

So I have put it away for now. My 'rents are visiting and there just isn't enough room for the mess with three people in the house. I also have glazing to do.

It is funny now that I think about it. Quite a lot has been going on in the last month or two:

Two weeks in Portugal, dead car, new car, dead fridge, new fridge, dear family friend dying very suddenly in Canada, 'rents visiting.

But even the car thing, though stressful at the time, didn't register much of a blip. These things happen. And they happen to everyone.

I am finally well enough to take my own advice: One thing at a time, one day at a time.

Another milestone in August was being off the meds for a year. I made it a whole year and I am in better shape than I have ever been in my life. Why couldn't they have diagnosed me that first time my mum took me to the doctor when I was 14? It is like I went to sleep when I was 24 and I have just woken up.

What a fucking waste. And I want so badly to make up for all that time.

So maybe that is it. Maybe I am just so pissed off at wasting all that time that now I can't stand wasting time on things like broken fridges and dead ends. Being what ever the opposite of being buried alive is.

Now I show off my legs and go dancing (when I can afford it) and run and make muffins and grow tomatoes.

I guess I am also looking for that person I can connect with. Not something I ever really thought about before. Being a robot I only ever had convenient arrangements with other robots but I am not a robot any more.

And humans are so complicated. I know I used to be one, way back before the medication and episodes, but have trouble remembering what it was like.

Is this what it is like? Wanting to connect? Knowing that today's crisis doesn't matter so you might as well go dancing and talk to the tomatoes?

I hope so.

A: A Freudian slip

even-star Is NOT Dead. And Has a Menagerie to PROVE It

2009-08-24T13:25:00.003+01:00

Nope. Not dead. Just really busy.

But I have five minutes at lunch today so you get to see what has been living in my head:

For Christine

2009-08-17T08:20:00.002+01:00

Yes Christine still alive! Thank you so much for your concern.

I guess it kinda looks like I went out for pizza and didn't come back.

Been away for two weeks on a much needed holiday. The two weeks before that were insanely busy trying to get everything into a state where I could leave it for two weeks.

Will be back to more regular posting soon!

Take care y'all!

Shrink in a Box Makes a Reappearance, even-star Feels a Bit Better

2009-07-11T11:30:00.005+01:00

Anyways, yes, a shit day/week whatever.

You have come in to this post somewhere in the middle.

Before this sentence I filled up three and a half pages with stream of shittyness.

Summary: I had a bit of a confrontation at work today with my bosses. The details don't matter now. Perception is everything and when I am worried and tired and under pressure my perception sucks. Or maybe not. Maybe today it was spot on. I have been working long hours to meet what are probably only my own high standards. I expected a bit of encouragement. Well, actually no. I didn't expect it. If I am honest I expected exactly what I got which was shit. Why did I expect it? Because I don't seem to get anything else for doing my best.

So on the way home after a twelve hour day I can hardly keep my eyes open, my stomach is in a knot, my brain is yelling horrible things at me. Gym. I NEED to go to the gym. I will beat my unruly mind into submission. And then I am thinking that there is no way I could get through it. I actually need a certain amount of concentration to be able to do my work out. Jesus. Forty minutes on the tread mill with only my acid spitting brain and Lady GaGa videos for company. I tell you what I would be raving before I hit the first hill.

So I am thinking: I need to do something. I can't eat. Sleep is out of the question. But I need to do something.

From the back of the shrieking crowd in the burning auditorium of my brain comes a quiet voice: There is something I NEED to do.

And then it comes to me: I NEED to write.

I haven't written anything in over a week.

This was actually a bit of a revelation on the drive home. One of those moments when you discover a truth about yourself that you didn't know before. A truth you can't escape. That is so much a part of you that you didn't see it until it was almost too late for it to save you.

I think I have posted here before about this strange form of therapy I find so effective. This purging of the dark spiral and hammering it out into straight grim lines on the page. What I didn't know until today was that this is something I needed to do to survive.

I haven't written anything in over a week and my brain was about to choke to death on itself. A black and jagged cherry pit cutting off the air.

The voice in my head (and we all have this voice so don't you look at me like I am crazy) that fights the darkness has been getting fainter and fainter and all this time screaming to be let out. To tell me all the terrible whisperings of the monster. Screaming at me to pour it out on the page and leave my aching bursting head flaccid and empty.

Three and a half pages of poisonous sour vituperation. Long hand. It's the best way. Something about the physicality of the thoughts flowing out through the ink like puss from a blister. The order they come out in is the order they stay in. No cut and paste editing. No deletions. No interpretation. It is the most honest way. If it comes out then it is something that I believe and I can't hide it from myself. It may be irrational and crazy and paranoid but it was in there and that made it real. Real enough to tie my guts into knots. At least to start with. But then as this aching need to get the thoughts out is slaked my brain vomits up all the irrational and all the damage until only what is true trickles out.

And it stops.

The swirling drunken spiral stops spinning and all those awful "I wish I had said" and "if only I had done it differently" moments go away for a while and there is a stillness in there. A deep and resonating quiet.

I didn't know until just now how many moments like that have been backing up in my head over the last few weeks. I have been punishing myself at the gym hoping to beat them out of me. And while there is an odd empty euphoria afterwards it does not bring the peace I feel right now. All of those moments are gone now. Not just suppressed by endorphins.

I can see now that maybe what happened was not the best and that maybe I could have done something better but what the hell can I do about it now? NOTHING. So why does my psyche seem so determined to gnaw itself bloody until I give it paper and pen to chew on? It would rewind and play, rewind and play again and again and again as if somehow I really could go back to the moment and change it. A scratched record. Writing pushes the needle out of the skip and keeps it going forward.

My intestines have stopped trying to digest themselves. I can think about something other than how I might have made a bad decision like no one else ever fucks up ever. The hell with that.The future doesn't feel so futile and over whelming and scary. The hell with it.

I'm hungry now. I think I will go to the store and get pizza or something.

even-star Takes an Unintentional Break from Blogging, Plays the Cute Card

2009-07-09T06:40:00.003+01:00

It isn't that I have nothing to say or show you.

Just working some stuff out right now and trying to keep head above water until the much needed holiday in August.

I intended to post something this week. Not this. Something interesting. But by the end of each day it is all my brain can do to get through an hour at the gym and tell my body to eat something.

Please enjoy this cute owl until normal posting resumes.

You know, given half a chance, he would totally eat your brain right out of your head.

When Dungeon Masters Attack: A Conversation With Lord ManHammer

2009-06-26T07:10:00.008+01:00

even-star: Welcome Miss Manhammer

Lord ManHammer: Please. Call me LORD Manhammer.

e-s: of course. Welcome

LMH: Thank you

e-s: I would like to start off by giving our audience a bit of back ground.

LMH: certainly. certainly.

e-s: you are Lord ManHammer the Supreme Commander of the Dark Hordes of Fluffytown

LMH: Correct.

e-s: not Lord of Fluffytown

LMH: No. My father Lord Lord Manhammer is lord of Urmumshire. Fluffytown is the capitol of Urmumshire.

e-s: it says here that you are named after your father. That is very unusual isn't it?

LMH: Well, not really. You see among my particular tribe of elves it is tradition to name a child BEFORE it is born. So that it can start building its identity in the womb. In early pregnancy the mother and father go to the Wise Woman and she tells them what the gender of the child will be so they can choose an appropriate name.

A naming ceremony is then held and the child has their appellation irrevocably applied. That’s some badass magic let me tell you.

So, The Wise Woman said they were expecting a boy so they named me after dear old dad. I was the going to be the first born son and it is pretty common among my people to name the first male child after its father.

e-s: you were a bit of surprise then

LMH: (laughter) Yes indeed. But it has many advantages.

e-s: How so?

LMH: Well no one can forget my birthday. Seeing that it is the same day as the anniversary of the Great Witch Burning of Fluffytown.

e-s: And what is your father's name?

LMH: Lord

e-s: I see

LMH: Lord is a popular name among my people. It means Adequately Competent Middle Manager.

e-s: Right. Yes. Your father has not been lord of Urmumshire very long.

LMH: No. He only became the lord the year before I was born after defeating the previous lord in a to the death game of Yahtzee. So he is Lord Lord ManHammer now. And I will be Lord Lord Manhammer after him.

e-s: Not LADY Lord ManHammer?

LMH: No, what kind of a stupid question is that?

e-s: On to the campaign then. Tell us, how did you find yourself in your current predicament.

LMH: it is all a bit hazy to be honest. I was spelunking for loot in some caves outside this village and all of a sudden there were goblins and this crazy ass paladin. I had to join the fight. Family honour and all that you know.

e-s: Goodness!

LMH: So after we defeated the goblins me and the paladin and this skinny chick went to the tavern to celebrate.

Next thing I remember I am on this boat that is just about to dock at some complete HOLE of a riverside town.

e-s: This is in Khemti?

LMH: Yes.

e-s: What happened then?

LMH: I was a bit stuck. No money, terrible hangover. What could I do but hang out with these two losers and hope to pick up some bus fare by doing a little adventuring?

e-s: Losers?

LMH: That isn't really fair I suppose. Ulric turned out to be pretty cool if certifiably unstable. A real loose cannon that one.

e-s: and the 'skinny chick' Akira is it?

LMH: something like that. Totally useless. Don't know how Ulric ended up with that one. Guess his paladin protective instincts compel him to put up with a weak person latching on to him.

e-s: my notes say you then met up with some guy. A libarian?

LMH: that would be Dimvesh. He wanted to find this book at this palace in the desert. Said there would be some cash in it for us. It was that or become an underwear model in the bazaar.

e-s: So you went out into the desert.

LMH: sounded like the standard adventure dealio. Go in, kick ass, get the loot, get out.

e-s: but it didn't turn out that way

LMH: No, that bleeping bleep bleep son of bleep bleepy bleep totally double crossed us. Turned out he was some crazy wizard guy who wanted to raise an army of dog head things made out of sand and rule the world or something with this other guy who was undead.

e-s: That would be Anuck-Sul

LMH: yeah that guy. Man what a buzzkill.

e-s: and this is where you met the ancient queen of Khemti. Kitesh?

LMH: Yes Kitesh. She's cool but I don't know if it has to do with her being raised from the dead or because she used to be queen or what but sometimes she can be a bit of a bossy pants.

She like says we are all going to die if we don't do what she says and traipse around the desert looking for books to defeat the dog head army guy.

e-s: and what followed?

LMH: there was some more adventuring, this crazy portal thing took us to this city in space

e-s: in space?

LMH: don't ask. By that point I just sort of tuned out the sheer amount of violations of physical and natural laws.

e-s: This city was Hamonaptra

LMH: this was where things started to get a bit boring. Doods dressed up as gods got all persecute-y. Sphinxes in books. It felt like Ulric and I were doing all the work. Kitesh helped some but we had drag Akira around with us. I told Ulric we should ditch that bleeping bleep bleep but he wouldn't let me cut her head off.

e-s: right. And what did you think of Khemti by this time?

LMH: Oh dear pagan deities of Delphi. It is a HORRIBLE place. Don't EVER go there. It's hotter than Baal’s sacred balls. Sand everywhere. Gets in everything. I haven't been grit free in WEEKS. Giant crab things. Squiggly soul devouring entities in pits. Ego maniacal undead doods just itching to cover the earth with their seething dog head army guys.

e-s: (laughing) not the place to book for my next holiday then! What happened in Hamonaptra?

LMH: It is a bit of blur. All I know is that we steal this book from the vizier and then I get dragged into the sewers where Cthulu's first cousin once removed was dwelling in immutable darkness.

e-s: It says here that you met another elf at this point.

LMH: Yeah, Tim the elf. Apparently he was out adventuring in the desert and found a portal to the city after we got there. The gods were pretty pissed at us so didn't cast a very friendly eye on other foreigners. They chucked him in the pit.

e-s: and did you feel that Tim added a valuable skill set to your group

LMH: oh totally. Totally made up for that bleeping bleep bleeper Akira.

e-s: So you are in the pit with the squid monster

LMH: so yeah, somewhere along the way I had picked up a couple of rituals and magic gloves. I totally got us out of that jam. Ulric Sent that bad boy straight to the Temple of Anubis through a portal. That was so awesome.

Plus I found this cool jewel skull thing. Shiny.

e-s: Then the city of Hamonaptra returned to the desert

LMH: that was where it all turned to shit.

e-s: explain

LMH: Well, first of all we had to slow the city down. There was this spell that gave Akira power to move it. But she is so useless I had to join in to help slow it down. Some really bad psychic damage.

e-s: and then it was off to the temple of Anubis.

LMH: we sort of charged through the Hordess of dog head guys on chariots. One got a good shot at me and I didn't even get to kill anything before we broke through.

e-s: what happened at the temple?

LMH: there were some dog head guys at the entrance but Ulric, Tim, Kitesh, and I put the smack down on those puppies.

e-s: not Akira

LMH:...

e-s: right so what then

LMH: The only thing left to do at this point was to find Dimvesh and Anuk-Sul and get this book thing back.

e-s: and it was at this point that you felt your DM started to fail you

LMH: pretty much. You see we found the two bad doods AND another squid monster. Or maybe it was the same one. I don't know.

You know Ulric has his paladin allegiance god or whatever. So does Tim. Kitesh has her heathen desert deities. I don't have that kind of back up. I need to know that the guy in charge of my universe has my back.

Fighting these two powerful wizard guys AND the squid monster I just wasn't getting that feeling.

e-s: What were you feeling?

LMH: You go along and everything makes sense. The big guy sends you against things he knows you can handle. Builds you up so you can improve. If lets you die he has nothing so it is in his interest to keep you alive. If he doesn't want you to live any more that is a major blow to your faith.

e-s: But you were able to kill Anuk-Sul and get the book

LMH: Small fry Ms. -star. It was Dimvesh

e-s: Dimvesh.

LMH: Dimvesh. His bonuses were so high no one could even touch him except maybe one in five turns. It was ridiculous. He also never missed. So there you are taking hit after hit with no chance of hitting back. What is the point?

e-s: so it would be fair to say that you have lost your faith. Faced a defining moment of spiritual crisis.

LMH: Oh TOTALLY! Tim and I are the only ones holding out. Ulric is unconscious. Kitesh, I am not sure what she is doing. I have been hoping that she is casting some sort of ritual to get us out of this. Really I think all Tim and I can do is run away.

e-s: run away?

LMH: Why stay to fight a fight we can never win?

e-s: And your companions?

LMH: It will be a shame to lose Ulric. But Akira has only ever been dead weight. The squid monster can totally have that bleep. I say cut them loose, throw them to Dimvesh and the squiggly thing. Get out while I still have my 100 gold pieces and jewel skull.

e-s: what are your plans for the future?

LMH: If I get out this then go back home and command the Dark Hordes until my father dies and I get everything.

e-s: no more adventuring?

LMH: Depends. Really all I have to show for all this agro is 100 gold pieces and a tacky knickknack. If it showed more profitability I might reconsider

e-s: One last question. There are those who say you only became Supreme Commander of the Dark Hordess of Fluffytown because your father is Lord of Urmumshire. What do you have to say about that?

LMH: Who says that? What kind of question is that? You bleeeeep bleepity bleep bleep I’ll bleep bleep kill you. Come on! Bring it you bleepy bleeps. All of you! I’ll bleeping bleep every bleeping bleeper bleep last one of you slags. This interview is bleeping bleep over!

e-s: Thank you Lord ManHammer

Oh Dear Lord My Eyes. MY EYES!

2009-06-24T08:05:00.006+01:00

I'm Soma Happy. 8"X7 "

Finally finished my Aldous Huxley Brave New World cross stitch.

I had this lovely piece of linen that was left over from doing my cousine's wedding sampler last year. 32 count.

Holy doodle. It made my eyes BLEED man! I am TELLING you.

It is fine material to work with but requires a lot of patience. The results are almost worth it. The blackwork on the D did not come out as I had hoped. The metallic thread was a real pain. Not precise enough at that aspect ratio. It is difficult to see the detail here. The A I am quite pleased with though.

The chart needed a few minor adjustments. I am glad I tested it.

I am going to be selling this one. Or at least trying to sell it. I have resolved to open an Etsy shop this year.

The updated chart can be had from my flickr photo set at the top left there. Chart is called A Gram is Better Than a Damn. Been pondering a proper name for it but that will do for now.

As an aside blogizen Christine of crumpledpaper asked me what software I use to make my charts. It is an app called xstitch pro. It is ok. Not the best. Or at least I am assuming it isn't the best as there are other apps out there that I haven't tried. For straight up cross stitch it does the job but it is not very good at handling anything involving fractional stitches or special stitches.

Not particularly user friendly either. There is only one Undo and it is rather buggy.

My charts always start off on graph paper and the software is just a way of finishing them off and making them publishable.

I have been shopping around for a better solution for a while but nothing gets very good reviews.

Guess I am a demanding consumer. What I really want is something like photoshop for cross stitch but the market simply is not big enough to make that sort of development commercially viable.

I would be interested in knowing what the cross stitch magazines use to make their charts.

If anyone knows please leave a comment.

Holy Crap! I Haven't Posted a Cross Stitch Chart in AGES

2009-06-19T12:16:00.002+01:00

Looking through past entries and realized that I used to put out a chart every couple or three weeks. And I haven't done this in, like, forever.

Bad even-star.

I have some ideas kicking around but with the summer here the outdoors beckon. It is hard to sit down in front of the computer and create.

Stay tuned though. There will be new charts coming!

A Year Gone By: even-star Remembers

2009-06-09T07:58:00.010+01:00

There are a lot of people who seem to have an opinion on what separates 'us' from the animals.

Oooh look at us we walk up right. Ooooh look at us we can laugh and cry. Ooooooh look at us we domesticate other animals. Oooooh look at us and our opposable thumbs.

The problem is that there isn't really anything that 'we' do that some other animal of some sort does not do as well or better.

Humans are just another type of animal.

What makes us unique among animals is one simple thing: poetry.

I was going to add a qualifier there and say: BAD poetry.

But really, all poetry is bad. There is no such thing as good poetry.

Hey, I am just sayin' what you're all thinkin'.

Shakespeare, Pound, Keats, Plath.

Bad. All of it ridiculous, self indulgent, nonsensical drivel.

Really now. Who can keep a straight face? The worst poetry I have read made me cry. Nothing beats a terrible haiku for a good cry.

But I am not saying this like it is a bad thing. All poetry is bad because it is emotion. It is what narrative can't explain or express. It is, by its very nature messy. It is grotesque and personal and silly.

And everyone does it.

Not all the time but I think it is a pretty good bet that every single human being ever has made poetry of some sort or other at some point.

Education is not required. Vocabulary is irrelevant. Wisdom, wit,and cleverness unnecessary. Indeed all these things can hamper a truly poetic soul.

All someone needs is an experience that defies any logical linear expression.

Catharsis.

I write particularly bad poetry when prose fails me. Which, and you should all be thankful for this, isn't often.

Last year when Murry died I didn't really write about it. Not on the blog. But I did write some poetry at the time.

It is a year ago today that Murry died and for Murry and for catharsis you are all going to read some of it and I am going to have a good cry.

Untitled 1

I open the door and look out

Like when you go walk about

I could call your name out the door

you won't come home any more

Where did you go?

What did you do?

wandering little mystery

off to the woods for a poo

I listen for your feet

tapping on the floor

Little bells coming down the street

and croaking little roar

gone now, softly sleeping

always by me, softly weeping

To end your pain we had to part
You live forever in my broken heart

Untitled 2

a bright shadow

twin moons

made my heart glow

in from the rain

sparkle

sat my feet lain

content rumbled

soft deep

with string tumbled

my little friend

gone now

left my garden

beautiful boy

Murry

was my heart's joy

your pain I take
be free
not my heart ache

I planted a tree for Murry and put his ashes there in the garden. The tree, a blue gum, is thriving and so is the catnip.

Buried under the tree, in a small sealed jar I left a message. I won't live here for ever and I won't be able to take Murry's tree with me when I go. I wanted to put something with it that would tell people who might want to dig it up that it is a special tree.

This is what I wrote:

This tree was planted June 13, 2008 in memory of the best mog in the world:
Murry.
He was a black, short haired, no breed in particular. I met him at the
Colchester Cat Rescue in July of 2004.

He had eyes like yellow moons, a grumpy face, and a croaky voice. His
purr was booming, his nose was scarred, his ears tattered. He was so beautiful.
He loved chicken curry and rolled often in catnip.He loved to go out in the rain
and would rather drink out of a mud puddle than his water dish. He had short
little legs and the fuzziest fetlocks.

He said hello by meowing and pretending to stretch putting out a front paw.
He waited in the window for me to come home. He sat in the sun and played in the
sun and ate grass in the sun.

The cancer came and he slipped away.

I loved him and he is gone and my tears watered this tree.

Be kind to the animals. Cherish them and the earth.

This tree is for Murry and for them and for you.

And that is it really.

I have had a good cry. You probably feel a little bit queasy.

Understandable.

I am tired. The negative energy has been released, spent. But I don't really feel any better ABOUT it. It doesn't change The FACTS.

He is gone and I miss him and it wasn't fair or right or anything else that makes sense. There is a dark place in my heart where he used to be and I keep waiting for the day when a light will shine out of it.

But not today. That light won't shine out today.

Sad Cat

2009-06-05T07:01:00.003+01:00

Been thinking a lot about Murry lately. It will have been a whole year in a couple of weeks.

And it is still such a horrible memory. That last morning. It was so bright and warm just like it has been all week this week. A perfect summer morning.

It makes me sad.

Sometimes I hate it here. It is so dry. If it is going to not rain any where in England it's here. There is just this relentless arid grey.

There are still times when I am home sick for that lush and dripping coast where I was born and grew up. It never bothered me like it did some people. Like it does the 'rents. I think it would kill Mum to go back there.

Anyways...

Grief and sorrow bear bitter fruit that can make very sweet pies. I like this little moggie. I like simple things and simple lines. He has Murry's sad sweet face and short little leggies.

Something From the Oven: Insert Girlie Squeal of Delight Here

2009-06-01T08:19:00.002+01:00

Just wanted to share my first bisque firing pick up with you all.

Working in clay is a bit like photography used to be before it got all digital instant gratification-y.

What you thought you put in isn't necessarily what comes out of the kiln.

This is the first work I have had fired for a few years so there are things that I am pleased with and things that I would improve on.

The people who I pay to fire my stuff are about an hour's drive away so I only pick up if I have stuff to drop off. Or I need to buy clay.

The Brick House is a fully equipped ceramics teaching studio and supply shop so if you are interested in learning this very satisfying craft for yourself (and you live in England in the Mighty County of Essex ) check them out. They are very friendly and very passionate about pottery and are open for lessons six days a week.

Cockles and Muscles Alive Alive-O! even-star Peregrinates, Camps, Goes to the Theatre

2009-05-20T13:00:00.011+01:00

The great thing about living where I live is that it costs very little time, effort, or cash to experience completely different cultures.

I spent last weekend in Santiago de Compostela.

The cathedral and town of Santiago de Compostela is in the Galicia province of north western Spain. It is the final destination of the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James) which is an ancient 900 km pilgrimage route. Pilgrims (mainly catholic) make their way along the ancient route starting in northern Spain and end their journey here.

I know about S de C from my days in art history but unless you are a catholic it probably hasn't been on your radar.

St. James was an apostle of Jesus and brought the Gospel to Spain. He returned to the holy land and after being beheaded in Palestine his body was returned to the north western area of Galicia.

The cathedral was built to house his relics and is suitably majestic.

A legend of the area tells of how his grave was found in a field after a meteor shower and that is where the name compostela comes from (literally field of stars) but actually, and less romantically, compostela is a derivative of the Latin word for cemetery.

Thousands make the 900km journey on foot to confirm their catholic faith and reduce their time in purgatory by 50%. (50%!)

I am not a catholic. Could never be a catholic. I have been to catholic services and have found that I am actually allergic to the incense. It burns. IT BURNS!!!!!

However, as all good atheists will admit, religion fascinates me. And I love art and interesting places and experiences. S de C provides all of these in abundance.

The main attraction is the cathedral of course. But it isn't just the building or its sculpture or art. It is the whole pilgrim culture and history that has developed around it. The town is full of hostels and the hostels are full of genuinely devout and serious people who have walked 900km of rough trails to get there and see what they genuinely believe to be the bones of a man who knew someone who claimed to be the son of a god.

MAD

This is something I did not expect.

There were lots of seculars like us but we were not the majority. This manifestation of faith was a very interesting experience.

I love places like this. The road side attractioness of it all. The incredible medicine show. The t-shirts and key chains and regional food specialties. The ENERGY.

The symbol of the town and cathedral is the cockle shell (there is a legend about this that I won't recount here). It is used all over the church and the town in sculpture and on signs and details of buildings. There is also the three flowered cross of St. James.

All over the area out in the country (and in the gift shops) you will see a rather peculiar piece of architecture. It looks like a giant reliquary on stilts and at first we thought they were something to do with the pilgrims. But no they are actually corn cribs. Even new houses will include one of these odd structures purely for ornamental purposes.

We got there on Friday just in time for the Pilgrim's Mass at noon. I had never been to a catholic service in a proper catholic cathedral before. I know some atheists who have no patience with this kind of thing but for me it is like going to the theatre. It is better than the theatre because of the interaction between the actors and the audience and the level of spiritual commitment of both. It is an amazing energy to feel even when you are not part of it.

The best part was that they got out the butafumeiro. This particular piece of religious paraphernalia is only deployed on Sundays but for some reason we could not determine it was used at the pilgrim's mass on Friday so I got to see it in action.

It is a giant censer that is swung north to south along the transept over the crowds. They actually burn the incense in it while it goes. It must weigh about 300 lbs and be four feet tall. Once it gets going it has been clocked at 70 km/h. There HAVE to have been accidents.

We stayed about two KM from town and walked in and out. Great going in as it is all down hill. Going out is a very steady up hill climb. Not too steep but I could really feel it when I got home.

The cathedral is free but if you are going to be a Looky Lou drop something into a donation box. Because of the climate and volume of visitors maintenance must be horrendous.

However the cathedral museum is only really worth the five euros if:

A) you really have to pee (there are no bathrooms in the cathedral except for in the museum cloister and only two public bathrooms in the whole town!)

B) like a good view. I took some photos from the third floor looking down into the town.

Other than that there are some OK tapestries by Goya, some very bad tapestries by Reubens, and a few rather good Gothic manuscripts.

The one thing that I really wanted to see (for you fellow art historians) was the Door of Glory by Master Mateo. It was sadly covered for restoration which was a disappointment. We could not make out when the work was going to be finished so you might want to confirm if this is on your To Do List.

The old town is great. All pedestrianised. Great food. Cost of living is a bit higher because you are in town but the hostels have good menus and are not too expensive. You must have at least one "small pie" and try some tapas. The other specialty is an almond cake with the cross of St. James on it.

It was a fantastic weekend except for one thing: the weather.

Do not plan a holiday in S de C. The climate is exactly like Vancouver (which made me strangely nostalgic). It rains relentlessly. If you want a sunny vacation spot in Spain do not go here. You will be disappointed. If you are ever out that way though go and visit the city. For a weekend or just a day it is tolerable.

If you are not camping.

We were camping.

Long story there that is isn't worth going in to but yeah three days in the pouring rain in a tent.

But even with this drawback I would go and do it again. Just three days and it is one of the best trips I have ever taken.

Insert Clever Title Here: even-star Cops Out for a Week or Two

2009-05-08T14:06:00.002+01:00

Is it stupid that I feel pressure to blog?

I don't like to leave it for too long but lately there isn't much to post about. Going to leave it for a week or two and I will have some stuff finished off and sorted out then.

Please enjoy this pretty flower and even-star will post some goodness in the near future.

Whoops: Where In even-star Lifts Weights, Combats a Rising Tide of Paranoia, Remembers She Has a Blog

2009-04-30T08:14:00.009+01:00

Um yeah, I actually kind of forgot I had a blog and an adoring public and all that.

The company where I work is...(and it makes me feel a bit dirty to use such a corporate whoredom buzzword) QUOTE Restructuring END QUOTE.

And the department where I work is one of those affected. Me and the webbies and the solutions developers are being split out from the main development team and being given our own office and our own department.

There are good things and bad things about this.

Good things will be having hopefully more interesting work, more opportunity to expand the team, a boss with more time.

Bad things?

Well a boss with more time could mean that I start getting micro managed and patronised. I am the only female in this team at the moment and I have yet to see any evidence that my gender isolation will not be mirrored in the new office set up.

With a smaller team in its own department the chances of being made redundant in the inevitable next round lay offs are increased.

In the end I don't think it is going to make that much of a difference. But having the kind of brain that I do I tend to worry about these things. And get all paranoid.

Gym right now is so important to keep me level. It was really difficult to get back into after the short holiday in Portugal. Complacency set in until I woke up one morning and realised that four days a week at forty minutes a day was not enough.

Tiredness, anxiety, paranoia, listlessness had all kind of crept up on me. Like standing in a puddle in canvas shoes you don't realise your feet are wet and cold until you try to move them.

So I am back to about an hour a day five or six days a week. Doing more weights. Love the cardio but really 30 minutes is as far as my attention span will let me go with that. To get the work out up to 50 or 60 minutes I have expanded into more strength training.

I have always been a little obsessed with bone density. Some women work out because they want 0% body fat and no ass. I work out because I don't want heart disease, osteoporosis, or suicidal tendencies.

Even after a few days back up to full capacity I feel so much better.

As you can see Jack is finally finished. He has been glowering at me all sad and intense and headless for months. I lost interest but in the end I hate unfinished things. So much time was invested already that to leave him would mean that time was wasted.

Not sure what to do with him now he is done though. Is there a market out there for Jack Bauer in cross stitch?

Sometimes One Just Has to Ask Oneself

You too can stitch Jack by getting the chart from my flickr photo set up in the top left there.

Also please visit Mr X Stitch and explore the Mr X Stitch web ring. You may see something amazing!

The More Stitches The Less Riches: even-star Makes a Confession, Cross Stitch Chart

2009-04-20T08:33:00.009+01:00

You have probably read here somewhere how Brave New World is one of my favourite books. That future is so awful and alluring at the same time. To have a role in life and society decided before one is even born and to be happy with that role is something, at certain times in my own life, I could really buy into. There is no poverty, disease, war, or misery.

All you have to do is what you are programmed to do and everything else is done for you.

An environment totally free of expectations and decisions.

So many of the hynopaedic phrases are suited to a cross stitch sampler format but cross stitch itself would be an unheard of dead art in that future. It is a solitary pursuit. It uses almost no equipment and the equipment is does use is simple and cheap. The materials required are few.

I took up cross stitch when my depression was very bad. There is something about the kind of concentration required to keep count of the stitches and their locations that helps to alleviate negative thought spirals.

Cross stitching is very good for one's nerves!

I was on the medication at the time but really cross stitch ended up being my Soma drug. When I was thinking about how many stitches and which row I wasn't thinking about... well... I just wasn't thinking.

It was an escape from my own brain that books or films or television or just about anything else could not provide.

I get that escape in lots of other ways these days. The gym gives me a euphoric zen emptiness. Gardening provides a more calm meditative state. When I get out the clay that would be Aldous' equivalent of embarking for Soma induced Lunar eternity. Time just disappears.

I will always love cross stitch and go back to it even with all the other things I have going on. It is the simplest form of meditation for me.

I am looking forward to stitch my latest. I can picture Mustafa Mond having this up in his office hidden behind some ghastly mass produced portrait of Our Ford.

For the big printable/stitchable version of this Brave New World / Aldous Huxley cross stitch chart you can download it from my flickr photo set up in the top left corner there.

I was finally forced to go Pro on Flickr.

Those bastards. They lure you in with the freebies and suddenly 200 is not enough!

Eu Montei o Caracol Poderoso da Lua: even-star Returns

2009-04-17T08:27:00.002+01:00

Back from the Algarve. Not quite long enough to totally unwind but I saw what I went to see: The Festas Das Tochas Floridas of Sao Bras.

I think the photos will express better what an incredible, moving, and unique experience it was.

Recharging: even-star Goes on Vacation for a Week.

2009-04-07T08:10:00.005+01:00

I am working on a longer post that won't be finished before I go on vacation tomorrow. It involves some research.

So I just wanted to put something quick and tasty up to let my adoring public *snort* know that even-star is alive and well though not living in Droitwich.

This is a little project that was inspired by my dad. It is an embroidery of a Stanley wood plane that he gave me for Christmas last year.

In other news the cross stitch has fallen off a bit due to the fact that I have found someone who can fire my ceramics work. This means that I can now do ceramics work. Which takes up a lot of time because I really love doing it.

I am in dire need of some time off. The daily grind can really adversely affect one's creative processes. The last three pages of my sketch book are full of incoherent ramblings, awful doodles, and lame ideas.

I may post from Portugal. It depends on the weather.

If you hear from me: it's raining.

If you don't hear from me: it's sunny. Or I'm at the beach in the rain.

The Only One In The World: even-star Makes an Outrageous Unconfirmed Claim to Notoriety on the Interwebs

2009-03-25T07:12:00.004Z

Welcome to the Double R: The only Twin Peaks Cross Stitch in the World!

Remember you saw it here first!

Actually you probably saw it on Flickr first.

Working overtime this morning and took a break to post Welcome to the Double R: The Only Twin Peaks Cross Stitch in the World!

Don't know as I am all that happy with it.

Liked how it came out on the black background. My poor photography skills don't do it justice.

The actual article has the neon sign feel I was going for.

I am probably less satisfied with the results of the photo than the work itself but I still feel it needs something.

Got the 'phones on to keep me company while I am in the office all by myself and chucked my entire Tunes folder into a playlist. Blackout by Muse just came on. Haven't heard that in ages and I had forgotten how much I love it.

Awesome.

You can stitch your own by visiting my flickr set up in the top left there. Admittedly this would make this not the only Twin Peaks cross stitch in the world. But that's ok.

Potassium Depletion Responsible for Lack of...Uh...: even-star Makes Bento Box Cross Stitch

2009-03-17T12:58:00.004Z

I have been unbelievably tired and stupid for the last week or so.

It has been a really serious problem. Wit has been downgraded to Spoon-like. This can really cramp your style if, like me, you are used to functioning at LASER levels.

Doctor says my daily work out has probably depleted my potassium and iron. This messes with one's electrolyte levels and if one does not take steps it can cause one's heart to stop beating or, even worse, prevent one from coming up with a penetrating and perfectly timed repartee.

I eat very simply. Lots of fresh unprocessed food. I figured it would be EASY to find a list of potassium rich foods and add them with very little inconvenience or caloric implications to my daily fare.

Nutritionists have just as much to answer for as fashion magazines.

The all hallowed 'Recommended Daily Allowance' is, in so many ways, just as unattainable as the grossly artificial ideals you see in Vogue.

All those poor fools out there counting calories and reading labels.

All futile.

3500 mg is the RDA for potassium. At least according to one quote-unquote authority. For others it is 2000. Some say 800.

Good Night. How difficult can a consensus be on something so testable? How can an RDA be an RDA when there is more than one?

Do you have any idea of the sheer amount of food you would have to eat to meet the 3500 mg target?

Three baked potatoes (one of the most potassium rich foods there is) would not be enough.

Your consumption would have to exceed the RDA of calories.

Even the 2000 mg level is unreasonable.

Is potassium in high doses toxic? If so the discrepancy between 3500 and 800 could be potentially fatal. Either through overdose or under consumption.

Surely I can't be the first person to have looked into this and called shenanigans?

So to hell with that. I am pretty much never again going to believe anything anyone tells me about what I should be putting in my body.

What you do need to put into your body is lots of sushi and chicken katsu.

I don't really know how healthy that is but it sure is tasty.

Made this bento box cross stitch chart a while ago. Maybe even have posted it somewhere else.

I felt it was an apt metaphor for my current dietary dilemma. In the end the box, which I anticipated filling with all manner of tasty potassium rich things, will be empty because I will be opting for a multi vitamin.

If you are feeling sharper than I get stitching.

Big print version is downloadable from flickr (upper left corner there).

Al Dente: Dental Mini-Crisis Leads to Awkward Conversation, Too Much Information, Sad Anecdote

2009-03-12T14:29:00.005Z

Teeth, like cars, are a poor but necessary long term investment.

You need them to get around and appear attractive to the opposite sex but after all, in the end, you are going to die and no matter what you do you can’t take your teeth with you.

That being said, I would rather die just after eating a juicy rare steak and sweet corn on the cob than creamed spinach and that is why this year I was resolved to go to the dentist.

As with all such tawdry prosaic mortal matters I have been putting this off. And like all the other tawdry prosaic mortal matters that have been put off before I was forced into dealing with this due to circumstances beyond my control.

Was flossing Tuesday night and got stuck on something in a back right molar. Before I knew what was what there was a distinct pinging noise and a tiny bit of silver amalgam comes shooting out, ricochets off the bathroom mirror, and lands somewhere in the pile of towels of questionable freshness by the sink.

I had lost a filling.

Now I have heard about lost fillings and about how excruciatingly painful this mishap can be. I can only assume therefore that there is still some of the bastard left in the tooth for all the huge gaping hole I can feel back there. There wasn’t any pain.

I actually said ‘Shit’ out loud to my reflection in the mirror.

A moment or two of fishing in the towels of questionable freshness produced the lost article.

The dental situation in this country is weird. You can get it on the health service but not all dentists do this. NHS treatment is much cheaper but it is not easy to get taken on as an NHS patient.

Not having been to a dentist in about 571 years let alone since I have been in the UK I thought it best to seek expert advice. I went to my doctor’s office to see if they could recommend a local NHS dentist who was taking patients.

My doctor’s office is also a bit weird. It is really a health centre with several doctors, a specialist dentist, clinic, and chiropodist. But when ever I turn up there the office hours have changed. Since coming off the meds I have had no reason to go so I was not aware that they had changed the opening time 8am to 8:30.

I turn up about 8:15.

At about 8:16, just as I am rattling the door, a man comes up to the entrance.

Tall, big, with that sort of grungy, dilapidated, hard disappointment that seems to envelope all Estuary men who, through circumstances or ill luck, spend their lives in hard and unrewarding labour.

I am terrible with ages. I can never tell by looking at someone how old they might be. Maybe 60? Probably more like 50.

He tells me that they don’t open before half eight. Calls me “mate” rather than the ubiquitous nailsonchalkboard “darlin’” with which I am invariably addressed here by men I don’t know. Mate is what you call an equal in south east Essex.

I smile and say “oh right. Thanks. They keep changing it”

Oh. Dear.

What followed, interspersed with my appropriate expressions of surprise and sympathy, was a complete medical history.

Not even in my most desperate darkest periods of depression would I have ever unburdened myself so completely to a total stranger.

Number of prescriptions. Pills per day. A graphic, but weirdly interesting, account of recent BRAIN SURGERY. How many surgeons. An account of incisions. CAT scans. Phone calls from the specialist.

This one sided conversation then moved on to family matters. This is where it just got too strange for me.

About five years ago this man’s son was walking home from a party when an acquaintance who was passing in a car stopped to offer him (the son) and another friend a ride.

The acquaintance, unbeknownst to the son or the friend, had just stolen this car.

What ensued was a high speed police chase that ended wrapped around a concrete lamp post.

The son and the friend, both 15 years old, were killed instantly. The driver survived, got 14 years but was out in 2.

He hadn’t got a headstone for the grave because the inquest is still pending. Goes to the grave for birthdays and the lack of headstone is, understandably, horrific.

By this time I was getting pretty desperate. The sheer AWKWARDNESS of the situation was making me a little queasy. Just an endless stream of heartbreaking misfortune. The unimaginable awfulness of losing a child.

Probably most people would feel imposed upon. Tragedy isn’t comfortable. But even though I was experiencing the emotional equivalent of not knowing what to do with my hands I could not feel imposed upon.

All I could think of was how lonely and full of sadness and rage some one would have to be to just open up like that to a random disinterested person. How it would eat them up inside if they didn’t and leave a shell that walks and talks but isn’t really alive.

At this point, when he got to the part about the headstone, the receptionist came and unlocked the doors.

He went one way and I went the other to make my enquiries.

It made me think about how many times stories like that come and go in one’s life.

And about how many times an opportunity is missed to find out how human you are.

Welcome to the Double R: even-star Dates Herself Through Semi-Obscure Pop Cultural References

2009-03-11T13:52:00.007Z

I am not going to claim that this is quite possibly the only Twin Peaks cross stitch chart in existance. I just don't have the sufficient interest to engage in the sort of anal retentive verification process that such a statement would require to be ratified.

Writing that sentence took quite long enough.

But I don't think there are many out there.

Now look. Both you and I know that there are all sorts of copyright issues being violated here so you better grab it quick before David Lynch sends the owls 'round to kneecap me.

Big print workable version can be got from my flickr set. Top left corner doods.

This one has not been tested so stitch at your own risk there. I will be testing it mostly likely next week.

Also is it kneecap or knee cap when you use it as a verb?

The Unquiet (and Lazy) Dead: In Which even-star Attributes Gardening Inadequacies to the Supernatural, Solicits Advice

2009-03-09T13:16:00.007Z

My house is built on a slacker graveyard.

There is no other possible explanation for the situation in which, year after year, I find myself.

The procrastinatory nature of the dead has seeped into the earth and infects anything I plant in it.

The result?

The laziest daffodils in the universe.

I swear. Absolutely everyone else's daffodils bloom before mine do. Even the wild exhaust fume breathing stunted mutated north facing shaded side of the road living daffodils are out while mine just sit there all leafy and stupid.

Mulch. Fertilizer. Cajolery. ABUSE.

Nothing works.

If anyone out there can tell me how to get daffs to bloom for the first week of March like all these freaky green thumb English gardening crazy people in my neighbourhood please leave a comment.

Don't Get How a Girl Feels?

2009-03-09T09:15:00.001Z

Put on Franz Ferdinand's 'No You Girls' and even-star will feel like she needs to start unbuttoning things.

Hammer Drill Time: In the Absence of Other Works In Progress even-star Fills the Creative Void With Power Tools. Ooooooh Yeaaaaah.

2009-03-03T08:36:00.008Z

Seriously, my mojo been a bit lojo. I have lots of things going on but nothing is getting finished because I am either bored with it or simply disastified with the results.

When this happens it usually means that I am unhappy with my environment and I need to spend some time, errr, is 'nesting' the right word?

I was a renter for a lot of years and this whole home-owner-put-as-many-holes-in-the-walls-as-I-freakin'-want thing is still new even after almost four years.

The guy I rented my place from before buying it off him was a total asshole. He lived in there for 15 years and never put up a shelf. When I moved in there were no shelves. What the hell kind of ASS. HOLE. lives in a place for FIFTEEN YEARS and doesn't put up a shelf?

Prick.

I LOVE shelves. I NEED shelves.

That piece of shit IKEA bookcase is finally interfering with my peace of mind I don't care how much of a ergonomically engineered convinient solution for modern living it is. That bastard is going to BURN.

I adore my dad. I am so glad that he is a builder and not a middle manager in marketing. He has taught me so many amazing things. And he has given me four of the most useful things anyone could ever hope to have:

1) a good quality hammer drill

2) a spirit level

3) confidence in my abilities and knowledge

4) a Stanley cast iron wood plane

Yay shelves!

Feng Shui is a bunch of superstitious nonsense but I know that my environment has an affect on my mood and creativity. Now that I have this bit of the 'nest' squared away I will be able to concentrate on something new and be a lot happier with what I am working on.

Yesssss! In Which even-star Pisses All Over YOUR Skag Baron Rating

2009-02-25T15:54:00.004Z

Seriously, google (and I feel just a little bit dirty for using it as a verb) Skag Baron and my blog is second in the results list.

What does that mean?

Ok I just made myself feel like a dirty google whore.

I challenge you all to a Skag Baron race.

Post something on your blog about Skag Barons and see if you can make it to the top of the list!

Winner in an honest fight (I work in IT and I will KNOW if you cheated) gets a bunnai or something else even-star.

You Mean There's a Choice?

2009-02-25T15:47:00.002Z

Veritas

2009-02-17T13:05:00.006Z

If you are looking for certainties there are a thousand faiths out there that will cater to your need.

In spite of what the fundies say science is not a substitute for religion. Science is a process. Question. Test. Conclude. Repeat. It gives us measurable, reproducible results and a framework with which to navigate reality and experience.

But the conclusions drawn today may change. Based on how advanced the equipment we use for measuring is. Based on other conclusions that change based on yet other tests.

I have never understood why people find such comfort in faith. Sometimes prayer works. Sometimes it doesn't. But perhaps it is the certainty people like. There is one ultimate explaination for everything that is eternal and immutable.

Just as religion is not the proper place for questions, science is not the proper place for answers.

Is the truth of my being bound up in a strand of amino acids? Can it explain why I do cross stitch instead of make model airplanes? Is a molecule of hydrochloride salt solely responsible for my recovery? If there is no connection between the body and the mind why send me to a therapist?

If the answer to all those questions was God or Goddess or what ever that crazy stuff is that the Scientologists believe in what a horrible place the universe would be. A horrible, futile existence in which the eradication of doubt leaves a terrible dark void and all roads lead to only one place .

Paranoia Paranoia Everybody's Coming to Get: even-star? Synchronicity in Action

2009-02-14T12:12:00.004Z

I have to be honest here. This is one of the few places where I can be honest. With myself and with whoever happens to stumble across this weird virtual space in the infinite real estate market of the Internet.

Things are a bit rocky right now. I know that the cause is stress. My stupid brain keeps pumping out fight or flight chemicals when I can't run from or deck anyone. This interferes with the circulation of serotonin and the production of dopamine. It makes me depressed, anxious, hunted, and edgy.

The brain doesn't realize in its beautifully automated relentless functioning that all the paranoia in the world won't save you when the enemy is yourself.

This is one of the worst aspects of depression. Doubt and anxiety are what kills a depressive in the end. When these two things invade on an unstoppable titanic wave of faulty chemistry there isn't anywhere to hide because they are already inside you.

Lock yourself in a pitch black room with a viper and then turn on the gas.

That's what it is like.

Pretty soon you are gasping and clawing at the walls and wondering why no one will LET YOU OUT.

You put yourself in there dumbass and no one knows where you are.

So before you shut yourself into that deadly box at least have the decency to tell someone.

And I am telling you. Whoever you are.

When one is a depressive person the gaps that occur between what is real and what is remembered or experienced can be quite fascinating. Imagine living in a Soap Opera written by Kafka.

Now THAT would be GREAT television. Maybe if I could watch it going on outside myself I could stop it going on inside myself.

I know that it isn't real. People are not out to get me. But goddammit when someone tells me something to my face I expect it to be the truth. Something I can tell someone else with confidence. And this week that just was not happening.

Seeing it written out like that I have just realised that I am not the cynic I pretend or wish to be.

The media is a different thing. It isn't a person. I expect lies from something with more than one head.

But where did I get this faith in people? Is it because I am an atheist and all I have are humanity and science?

Maybe.

This morning I woke up with that crawling feeling I always get in my stomach before an exam or after I have said something I wish I hadn't said. That feeling that was gnawing and constant and horrific during my worst episodes.

I looked over the last week in my mind. Page after page of Should I Have Done That? And between the lines: Why was everyone so patronizing? So Out To Get Me? Wanting Me To Fail.

Edgy and paranoid I drank my decaf (you know it is bad when the DECAF comes out) and tried to do some work on a new cross stitch project.

Before an hour had past I had to rip out about a hundred stitches.

That so isn't like me.

I brightened a little at that to think that the real me is a content, creative, and able person. Able to concentrate. Able to ENJOY something.

But the needle and thread, usually so soothing, so zen, were torture this morning. I hated my clumsy hands and clumsy foggy brain. Hated myself for sliding this far down with out realizing what was going on.

I looked back on the week again and knew that I had done the best I knew how to do with no one to support me. That the offer of help on Friday was not meant to diminish or patronize but to reassure me. To take the pressure off.

I looked out at the sunny chilly day. Resented the brightness because I didn't feel it.

I phoned the 'rents to wish the dad a happy birthday.

I felt better. Decisive. Determined to get out of the house.

Getting into the car I teased myself for being paranoid by humming Harvey Danger's Flagpole Sitta.

Key in the ignition, revving up, coming out of the speakers mid verse:

"...commit me

You told them all I was crazy

They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, Goddamn you..."

Laughing at how hilarious, bizarre, and ridiculous it all is I pulled out of the drive singing at the top of my voice.

I'm not sick, but I'm not well.

I am still just me and that is so wonderful and so awful at the same time.

Hugs From Afar: In Which even-star Opens Mail, Goes "Awwwwwww", and Relents (slightly) Against Valentines

2009-02-13T12:12:00.003Z

Fellow blogizen Christine of Crumpled Paper has sent me a Valentine. She even drew me a picture. A little original bit of Crumpled Paper of my own! And Hugs! I soooooo needed a hug yesterday.

In light of my earlier tirade I know this makes me look bad. Bad, inconsistent, and squishy. I don't care. I still hate Valentines Day. But it in bad, inconsistent, and squishy kind of way.

awwwww look at the little flowers! they are little hearts!

Thank you so much Christine!

My Ex-Wife Used to Call Me Sushi: even-star Posts a Project, Thinks Auteurism is Not Always Appropriate

2009-02-09T13:08:00.004Z

If Ridley Scott actually asked anyone what they thought of the FPN in Bladerunner he would know that it MADE the movie.

Seriously dood, the film is visually arresting but that cliche hard boiled inner dialogue turned a conventional narrative into a brilliantly entertaining piece of science fiction. Take it out and it is just another bad adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novella. Some of best lines ever uttered on screen (not to mention the theme of Empathy crucial to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) have disappeared under your apparently inflated artistic ego.

My artistic ego is negligible. And rightlly so. Which is why I can post stuff like this and still be proud of myself:

That's a Tekka Maki cross stitch. Framed it is just over 3"x3".

If you want to stitch your own you can get the chart at my flickr photo set. Up there in the left hand corner.

Flash Gort Done

2009-02-05T09:04:00.007Z

Ok, that title doesn't really make any sense but at this time of the morning it turned out far better than than anyone should really expect.

Did He Just Not Hear Her the First Time? is all stitched, blocked, mounted, and ready for framing. Well, sort of. It looks a bit wonky up close like this. I might redo the mounting. It turned out 4*5.5 inches. Quite wee actually.

If I can get my act together to open a store on Esty I might sell this one. Or maybe not. I tend to give away anything I finish but for some reason I just like looking at it. It feels wrong to part with it for dirty filthy cold cash currency.

Perhaps an exchange of some sort...

You can stitch Gort yourself by downloading the chart from my flickr set. Up there in the top left corner.

Join The Revolution: No, even-star Will Not Be Your Freakin' Valentine.

2009-02-02T12:43:00.002Z

I am a very poor consumer. I just don’t buy things. This "economic downturn"? All my fault. Sure I hanker after designer switch plates, brand name power tools, and browse lifestyle porn site Apartment Therapy but in the end it is all just petty voyeurism.

And it isn’t just things. My media consumption borders on serious deviancy. No television. The TV license people, I am sure, provide a list of all such individuals to the secret service as potential seditious revolutionaries.

This doesn’t mean I don’t consume television. Through the wonders of modern technology I can download pretty much anything I want. But I don’t even do this very often. I have whole series sitting on my hard drive that I will probably never watch.

Books and more often Audio Books (because they leave the hands free) form the basis of my media diet: Fiction, non-fiction, and lecture series. There is always something going while I am working. Not at my day job but while I am making things. Television kills artistic productivity. The only thing I can do with a TV show or film on is crochet or knit and I am never as satisfied with the end product as I am with creations made with out TV.

Christmas in the UK is a sort of blurry month of nightmare even in my media deadzone. There is no escape from the insanity. I love going to Portugal at Christmas. It is a serious festival there that remembers it’s spiritual roots. It is about family and feasting and friends. Their whole economy is not based on how much people buy during December.

So you might assume from this that , for me, Valentine’s day is a crime against humanity, nature, and all that is good and ethical in the universe.

And you would be right.

Let’s face it. Valentines day is purely an invention of consumer society to boost slumping post Christmas sales.

Do you even know who St. Valentine is? Or why you should be buying landfill fodder for the person you happen to be sleeping with on this particular day? Even the Catholic church isn't sure and if anyone should be it should be them.

This reluctance to celebrate romance on an officially sanctioned and church approved day has often confused the men in my life.

Most have thought it a devious application of feminine wiles to test their female communication skills.

February 7th

Him: so what would you like to do for Valentine’s

Me: Nothing. I think it is stupid. We should probably just ignore it.

Him: Yeah it is a bit silly isn’t it. I know how you hate all that crass consumerism stuff.

Me: so we’re cool?

Him: cool. If you are sure.

His brain: Ah so if I plan a big date and buy her a teddy bear with a big fuzzy heart that says “I wuv you” I will have proven that I truly understand her because obviously that is what she wants. According to societal stereotypes that is what all women want even if they say they don’t want it.

Me: yup, sure. We are going out the Saturday after anyways.

His brain: She says she doesn’t want it just so that I can prove how much I care by totally ignoring her and planning a big date and buying her crap.

February 14th

Me: I thought I said it was stupid and we should ignore it.

Him: So you don’t want the teddy bear.

Me: did you make it?

Him: No, I bought it at Hallmark

Me: oh.

His brain: this isn’t working out like it does on television.

My brain: did he not listen to me? Am I wasting my time with this one? What the fuck am I going to do with a teddy bear that says ‘I wuv you’?

It doesn’t always turn out like this. I have been known to compromise. I went out with this one guy who LOVED Valentine’s Day. It wasn’t some societally dictated girlfriend pleasing chore to him. He celebrated it even when he was single.

Freak.

Anyways,

even-star now calls upon you all to stand up to this guilt inducing landfill filling yearly ritual of pain, anger, and recrimination.

If you are not single, break up for one day and then get back together. If you are single book a table for one at every restaurant in town and then don’t turn up. Buy all the pink and white cards you can find and BURN them. Send hate cards to all your enemies. And friends as well. Obtain vast quantities of red roses and undercut the florists by selling them at a loss to desperate retarded men.

All that money that you were going to spend on a date and candy and cards and teddy bears?

Donate it to Oxfam so that someone can have clean drinking water. Give it to a local hospice so that some one can die in peace and with dignity. Write a big fat cheque to the local animal shelter so that living creature has a chance at finding a loving home.

That is the type of thing that, as far as even-star goes, is going to get you lucky on any day of the year.

Answers Are a Prison For Oneself

2009-01-30T08:56:00.008Z

As you may be aware Patrick McGoohan died this week. Apart from a distinguished career on screen and on stage he was the co-creator of one of the very few things in the history of the medium that demonstrated that Television could be an art form: The Prisoner.

I put other designs on hold to immortalize his famous line from the opening credits in cross stitch.

Surreal and odd it is a chilling allegory of the individual's isolation in the post-human era. A searing indictment of consumerism, conformity, and democracy where the consent of the perscription drugged and media zombiefied masses confers ultimate power.

I wanted to get the chart out this week so it is fairly simple. I watched the series again to get some inspiration and might do another one that incorporates more of the stylish and timeless detail of the show. A Portmeirion skyline perhaps?

For the large version click HERE

Sometimes One Just Has to Ask Oneself...

2009-01-26T13:53:00.003Z

Jack Bauer cross stitch.

For a downloadable version click HERE

I don't watch 24. Someone loaned me the box set of season 1 several years ago and I think I got to about episode 5 and then decided that it so was not worth and entire day of my life.

The techies like it though.

Also I know that this probably violates all sorts of copyrights and permissions. Get it before Disney or whoever decides to sue my ass.

Rainy Weekend: even-star Finds Something to do With Her Hands and Reveals a Little Bit of Herself

2009-01-26T13:37:00.005Z

There is a conceit in Art known as Pathetic Fallacy. This is when the weather that is depicted sympathises with the mood or events in the same expression.

The weather this weekend was pretty dismal and I was pretty tired and a little bit down. I like it when my mood and the weather coincide. If it had been sunny I would have been annoyed. I wouldn't have had an excuse to cozy up, eat pizza, and dabble.

Beaded bracelet: Seed and lampwork beads.

Earrings: pearl (obviously the fake kind) with gold (plated) accents. Pure Class.

And yes that is my very fetching nibblable earlobe there.

Melee Attack with +2 Mace, Use Sacred Flame 1-D8+4: even-star Gets Her Geek On.

2009-01-23T07:33:00.010Z

I had to stay late afterwork yesterday. About an hour. Retarded. Why am I doing this to myself when I know they are going to plead the Economy when it comes to raises this year.

When I left my office, out on the mezzanine landing there appeared to be a meeting going on at the large table there. A few people from my department were among the participants plus someone I didn't know from some other part of the business.

Being nosy I wanted to know what they were up to at six thirty at night still at work.

But it wasn't work at all.

They were engaged in an encounter of Dungeons and Dragons.

I remembered a couple of weeks before a work collegue sent an email around expressing interest in getting up a little group to play after work. At the time it didn't appeal but coming out on to the landing they asked if I wanted to join in.

I prevaricated for a few minutes looking at the table with its dice and pencils and pads of paper. Then one of them said the pizza would be here in five minutes.

Sweeeeeet.

Now you wouldn't know it to look at me but I know a tragic amount of stuff about the original RPG.

So I spent a very entertaining gregarious few hours eating pizza, chatting, laughing at the guys when they got into disputes about how much damage the fire beetle could inflict, and cursing the D20 when I rolled a one in a very sticky situation.

The other players were sadly impressed at how much I knew. Actually I was sadly impressed as well.

I have always wondered why Gary Gygax's (Peace Be Upon Him) brain child has always gotten such a bad rap. Tender mothers would rather see their sons (for it is assumed that only males are interested in it) sit in front of a television or computer screen playing some first person shooter that offers no interaction with other human beings than get together with a bunch of friends and use their imaginations.

Eternally maligned as the game of geeks (as if being a geek were a bad thing) Dungeons and Dragons figured large for about five years of my childhood. This was due to only one thing: I had an older brother.

You wouldn't think it to look at him either but it was his Thing for a while. He had all the books. Monster Manuals. Spell Compendiums. He built his own dungeons and to get to play them he generally had to rope me into interminable sessions of character building. And not the kind you get in boarding school or the army.

My mum thought that I would have no social life when I went off to uni because I refused to learn Bridge. It seemed rather odd that my mother, the conformity of her upbringing always at war with her free spirit, wanted me to do something I didn't like in order to fit in. If I didn't like Bridge I just couldn't see how I would find kindred spirits amongst Bridge players.

Fortunately, no one played bridge at my university. At least not in the crowd I fell in with.

Everyone played Dungeons and Dragons.

It was a great way to meet and get to know people. A REALLY great way to put off writing papers, studying for mid-terms, and going to class.

So, yeah I had to give it up in second year or my ass would have totally failed out. It is quite time consuming. One high level encounter could take three or four hours so when the delectable David Moos was giving a lecture I am ashamed to say I ditched the geeks and went for the eye candy.

The one down side to the game is that you will occaisionally run into people who are very serious about it. I can't be serious about it. For all the Byzantine technicalities the premise is deliciously silly. And it is a GAME. It is SUPPOSED to be FUN.

There was one guy there last night who was very serious and I believe took exception my my joining in. It could have been my laughing uproariously at the hilarity of his bloody broken beetle ravaged corpse. The DM, the co-worker who had sent the invite, hadn't played for years. There was also one fellow techie who, like me, had played when he was quite young and there was a newbie who had never played.

We had a great old time. At the end of a hard day I had a laugh and relaxed and interacted with interesting imaginative people.

It was a bit different from what I remember. There was this board thing that had the environment sort of laid out on it which I had never seen before. The characters were ready made and the monsters and things had markers that got put on the environment board and moved around so you could see where they were. I think the DM had ordered like a starter kit with all this stuff in it.

I am not sure if I like the full disclosure visual element that has been added but I can see how it would make the game more accessible to more people. It is something that people who are used to board games would see and maybe be more apt to try because it is familiar.

I totally kicked ass. Everyone else was like dying or down to four hit points. I saved them all with my Daily Action. Those beetles will think twice before taking on Sigmar the Human Cleric again.

I used to say that I don't have the patience for cards or board games or party games but that is pretty rich coming from someone who does cross stitch. The truth is I just don't like them and I think it is because there is no imagination required. D&D uses that part of my brain I like to use most. Perhaps not quite so edifying as reading a book but it is an interaction of several imaginations and personalities that even the best book can't deliver.

Plus there is pizza and beer.

Not Exactly Lee Evans Happy: even-star Counts Her Blessings, Expounds for the First and Last Time on Current Affairs

2009-01-21T08:57:00.005Z

You may have noticed that even-star hasn't had much to say recently. I write for many reasons but sometimes life and the energy it requires overtakes those drives.

I write to organize my darkness and keep it in order. If it is out on the page that means it isn't rampaging around my head causing all sorts of trouble. The darkness hasn’t gone away but my brain has been too busy to take much notice of its chaos. If you have a pin stuck in your eye it turns the tornado coming down the street into a distant and slightly nagging concern.

Like a sulky black hole that has run out of stars and planets to devour in its corner of the universe the dark floats invisible in the void. I haven't gone close enough to feel its pull.

This does not mean that I am exactly Lee Evans happy at the moment.

Work has been so relentless the last three weeks that I don't even have time to think about all the work things I need to think about in the day. The atmosphere there is strained and irritable. The company I work for has bought into this economic down turn thing and instead of waiting for something that probably won’t happen they are cutting back now. Until yesterday no one knew if they would have a job at the end of the month.

When the work day ends I spend an hour at the gym mercilessly beating my body into producing endorphins. Thoughts don't intrude into that heart pounding sweat pouring interlude. It is all I can do to remember to breathe. After that I come home, force myself to eat something nutritious, and try to get some art done before sinking into the glorious oblivion of six or seven hours of sleep.

(A bit of an aside here for fellow depressives. I was given many coping strategies during my recovery. I committed to learning them and practicing them and they do work and they have helped me. Unfortunately I have to admit that all the psychology in the world is pretty useless as the only coping strategy that has made coming off medication possible is the gym. If I didn't put myself through this daily ritual of self flagellation my life would have become intolerable and I would be back on the SSRIs. If I miss more than a day I can't sleep, I can't concentrate, I become irritable with clients, I snap at people. I cannot stress enough how important this has been for me in treating and managing my depression. And yes I will also admit freely that I have simply exchanged one drug for another but at least this one doesn’t make my brain fuzzy, kill my sex drive, or keep me up at night.)

The thing with writing is that one needs to have SOMETHING to write about. The daily grind is seriously getting in the way of edifying inspiring experiences.

There are negative things:

Global economic crisis blah blah blah, redundancies so we can remain competitive blah blah blah, oh no inflation is up we are all going to die, oh no inflation is down we are all going to die.

Seriously folks, the only reason we are having a recession is because the news media said we are having one. Some how people mistake The News for reliable authoritative information based on responsible ethically conducted research, study, observation, and experience.

Whence this state of affairs? It baffles me. This is why, after a comprehensive liberal arts education, I became a science geek. I just got tired of hearing what was good for me, what was bad, global warming one day, climate change the next. When one knows how science works and has a good understanding of the basics one is armed against all the fear mongering and pseudo scientific crap they fill the news with.

And let me tell you a secret: obtaining a good understanding of Science isn’t hard. All you need to know is HOW to learn. I believe Frank Herbert expressed his opinion in Dune that most people don’t believe that they can learn. Being a child of non-conformist hippies this was one of the first things I learned how to do and was always told that I could do. It is one of the very few things I have ever had any amount of confidence about in myself. I encourage you all to explore it.

Maybe if people were better informed about economics there wouldn't be all this ridiculous panic. If unemployment is at four percent doesn't that mean that 96 percent of all employable people are, er, employed?

I failed my one and only economics class in my first year of university due to the fact that I didn’t find it in the least bit interesting and was otherwise occupied learning about herbal, um, remedies and volatile organic compounds. It is fortunate for me in that case that I am cynical about and suspicious of The Media. When they talk about how bad the current inflation rate is for the economy then literally the next day, because it is down two percent, say deflation is going to be the death of us all, I can make a none too shrewd judgment call about how a two percent drop in inflation is actually going to affect me.

I find, however, that I am in the minority.

It makes me wonder how this Crisis affects the rest of world. That doesn't really seem to figure in many minds. It is so bad to we who worship at the glittering fluorescent lighted temple of Consumerism because cutting back means our standard of living takes a hit.

But what about people in Zimbabwe or Gaza who don't even know if they are going to live through the night? Those kids who make running shoes for four cents a day in what ever slave labour pool our favourtie brand names deem most expedient. Do they see any difference in their life style? Do people in those 'other' places even know the decadent west is squirming like a five year old who has just finished an Extra Big Gulp and then got on a bus because that new flat screen is going to have to wait until next year?

The word Global gets thrown around and you would think that it would make us step back and see that there are no more islands. That perhaps there are quite a lot of hostilities and differences that can at the last be LET GO. That maybe it is time to admit that even though capitalism is the best system we have it doesn't mean that we can't come up with something better.

That is what evolution is for. When something doesn't work it dies and allows something new and better to grow up in its place.

I am not a raging lefty. I know that communism in practice just does not work. It is pretty stupid actually. Every one having the same and being equal regardless of merit, effort, or talent is, when you think about it, retarded.

But to believe that capitalism, consumerism, and Brave New World are the end game is defeatist. As bright and clean and clinical and convenient as Huxley's future is, human beings do not inhabit it. I can't say I haven't had my fantasies. For me there has always been something sinisterly alluring in being a purpose built machine for consumption. But that is all I would be in that world and sadly there are a lot of people around me who are just that already.

If they are no longer required, or are unable to consume, their lives would be empty. They would be empty. What would they do?

Are there positive things? Hell yes. But like in the news, these tend to be less interesting.

I was not made redundant this week when our company just finished a round of lay offs.

The people I care about are healthy and, for the time being, employed.

I am warm, well fed, safe (I don't live in a war zone and Romford is like 12 miles away), able to pay a mortgage, healthy, mobile.

That is so much more than 90% of the rest of the world.

Show Offs: In Which even-star Wonders Why She Bothers and Considers Giving Up All Together in Light of the Competition

2009-01-20T14:24:00.003Z

Zelda cross stitch spotted on geekologie

Just a Nibble

2009-01-20T09:05:00.002Z

even-star is finding that time is at a premium today so is just posting a motif from a work in progress.

It's going to be EPIC.

I can't decide which one to use.

Did He Just Not Hear Her the First Time? Also Let It Be Noted That even-star Was The First to Welcome Our Glorious Farting Martian Microbe Overlords.

2009-01-15T08:54:00.003Z

Today scientists have published proof as irrefutable as such proof can be that there is, indeed, life on Mars.

How do they know this? Two things:

1) There is water vapor. Just about every kind of life we can understand needs water of some kind.

2) There is methane. And where does methane come from? Why from COW FARTS of course!

There are teeny tiny microscopic cows farting all over Mars.

I am as excited as you would expect any science geek to be.

And so I though it would be appropriate to post my latest cross stitch design today especially to commemorate this amazing event.

If you have not seen this fine little film from 1951 your cultural education is woefully lacking.

Now go see it! Before I sic the Gort on ya.

Glassy Come Home: In Which even-star Experiences a Rift in the Space/Time Continuum, Falls Out with an Accessory

2009-01-12T13:38:00.003Z

About five years ago, after a trip across Europe, the rents gave me a set of Murano glass beads from Venice.

I made a pair of earrings from some of them almost a year ago and I wore them all the time up until a couple of months ago when one of them went missing. I am not going to say “I lost one of them” because that does not accurately describe the subsequent events.

I have this Raymond Chandler Movie Anti Hero-esque habit of pulling on my earlobes when I am thinking about something and one day after work, about 8 weeks ago, I am starting up the car and start thinking about what I have in the fridge for dinner. It is then that I discover that at some point between my desk and my car one of the earrings has gone missing.

I tried retracing my steps but our parking lot at work is HUGE and at the time it was very dark. It isn’t flood lit or anything. I even looked the next day in the light. Looked in the office, in building, on the stairs, in the car.

Gone.

I was a little bit sad about this as I was fond of them and the beads had been a gift. The remaining one has languished rather pathetically in the car’s defunct ash tray along with gas receipts and out of date business cards. I was so annoyed at losing its mate I took it out right away and just chucked it in there. And there it will remain forever.

Or maybe not.

Had to run an errand at lunch today and as I just got out of the car and was about to shut the door I look down and there it is.

Right there in the little trough between the driver’s seat the door. Where any dumbass could have seen it at any time in the last 8 weeks.

I was confused for a second. Thinking that some how it had escaped from the ash tray.

But it was indeed the missing article.

This sort of thing tends to upset me because there are only two possible explanations:

Option 1: even-star is dumbass with less spatial awareness than an amoeba

Option 2: Time, space, and matter do not behave in any way resembling the laws and theories presented by contemporary science.

Where did the earring go? How did it come back again? What was it doing all this time? Is this evidence of resistentialism? If so did the earring do it to make me doubt my own sanity? Or did it come back simply because it was tired of going it alone? Did it miss the other earring?

So now, instead of just being happy to have it back, I am mad at the earring.

Plus it is just far too awkward now to wear it. I mean goodness knows WHERE it has been.

Some Photos. Because even-star Is Lazy and Doesn't Have Time to Write Anything.

2009-01-07T09:06:00.004Z

These photos were all taken in Portugal in December while spending the festive season with the 'rents.

It's All Relative. Or Maybe Karma. Whatever. Four Shots of Cuervo Gold Over Here.

2009-01-02T17:21:00.003Z

Made at GraphJam.

Really all air travel is horrendous. I find that the best thing to do is to just get through it and then forget about it by applying copious amounts of certain volatile organic compounds to the nervous system.

When Life Gives You Lemonade, Gloat

2008-12-20T17:35:00.002Z

In Portugal for the non-denominational secular winter festive season.

Entries may be more intermittent than usual.

Also please excuse any spelling errors. The spell check seems to take offense to anything that isn't Portuguese.

Bored? Franz Ferdinand Advises Getting High, Wandering Around Dublin

2008-12-16T17:04:00.002Z

Ulysses

Franz Ferdinand

January 19th

If, while listening to this, you do not have the urge to dance around in your underpants you are obviously a serial killer.

Or a square.

Both are pretty bad.

Critical Practice: In Which even-star Discusses Nomenclature, Interprets Literature, Discovers a Use for Footnotes

2008-12-15T12:54:00.006Z

The name even-star in not an affectation. It is, in a manner of speaking, actually my name. People who see my birth certificate, passport, or driver’s license display surprise and most of them ask “you mean like from The Lord of the Rings?”

And yes I then have to tell people that my parents are hippies and that my mother, who has always had a great love of this particular work of literature, named me after one of its two non-conformist heroines. I often wonder if she had some inkling of my own future character when she chose the spiritual rather than the physical representative or if she just took pity on me thinking that it would be easier to live with than the slightly odder Eowyn.

They flipped a coin to see who got the first name and although my dad won the toss I think mum’s choice would have been more liveable as a first name compared to the elegant tongue twister (and the spelling nightmare that is its shortened form) I ended up with.

Interesting to note that my mum also has a literary middle name. It has a far more obscure origin than my own even though the author was a Nobel laureate. *

Now in spite of the fact that for my entire life there was, on my mother’s own bookshelf, a copy of the ring trilogy in various volumetric breakdowns and stages of dog eared much thumbed dilapidation my dad had never ever read it.

I didn’t realize this until they came to visit on October and he came out with “I just finished reading the first book of theee, uh, Lord of the Rings”

I have met people who feign dislike of this engaging, ambitious, mythological tale of great deeds, powerful friendships, despair, hope, and crazy assed tree people.

They probably do it to look cool but really they just look kind of stupid. Ok, it aint for every one but to not appreciate the breadth of vision and quality of the writing is just plain ignernt.

I asked him if he had enjoyed it and he said “Yes! I really liked it! I don’t know why I haven’t read it before.”

I kind of do. Dad is a non-fiction kind of guy. He loves biography and history and his fiction choices have tended towards these genres. I think he liked it because it has an enthusiastically detailed historical context.

Also there are lots of manly men and fighting. Arrrrrr.

Dad is the only person in the family to not have a bunnai so I decided to remedy this situation by making him a bunnai Gandalf for Christmas.

I had this grey wool because my cousine’s new husband requested a grey and green bunnai. I made the bunnai but didn’t like the way he turned out. He has been sitting on the shelf for a while and then for some reason it occurred to me that, being so tall and straight, he would be perfect for the wizard.

The hat posed a problem. I tried a pointy one but it just didn’t look right and I couldn’t get it to work with the ears sticking out the sides. It wouldn’t sit right and folded at an odd angle. So I went with the ears coming out the top. The bunnais have to have the ears showing. If the ears are hidden they lose a lot of their mojo. If the Lord of the Rings were set on Easter Bunnai Island Bunnai Gandalf would totally be shootin’ the sparks from the ears so they can’t be stuck under the hat. This, of course, renders the hat useless in most other areas of hat-dom, such as keeping the rain off one’s head, but he’s a wizard. He can take it.

*It is even more interesting to note that my mum has never been known or called, even in her own family, by her first name. No one has ever satisfactorily explained to me why this is. It is a bit strange because her first name is quite ordinary, plain even. She has always struggled with her defacto name. It isn’t difficult but everyone always gets it wrong. Friends who have known her for years still come out with Kirsten or Christine or even Christian. Most of the time she just rolls her eyes and settles for Kris. I have only known one other person with this name. I met her my first year in university and we are very good friends.

Mum’s own mother was reading this particular book while she was pregnant and took a fancy to the name of the eponymous heroine. If, with these rather obvious clues, you can figure out what this book is do not, under any circumstances, read it. It’s description of life in Scandinavia during the middle ages is interesting but really the whole premise is just a bit silly. Getting that worked up about having pre-marital sex with the person you are actually going to get married to in a couple of months was something I just could not relate to. Yeah yeah, nobel prize, blah blah blah. What I can’t help thinking is at the time she got the prize it was probably mostly men who made the decision and men at that time would have loved to think a woman, and her father, could be that tortured about virginity and its loss outside of holy matrimony.

Ooooooh, that’s a bit cynical isn’t it?

My mother has with the pronunciation of her name the same trouble I have had with people spelling my shorthand name. I opted for this simpler, mono syllabic epithet at some point in high school not knowing how annoying it would be when email became the communication medium of choice. People throw in an I or drop the E and it always makes me slightly less helpful than I would be if they got it right. I mean after all it is right there in the email address dumbass. What really grates even more is that if they call me by that name in conversation I KNOW they are still spelling it incorrectly even if it does sound the same.

In business I have kept this short version because that is what I started with and it would just be too confusing to change now. It would also mean wasting four boxes of perfectly good business cards on which it is spelled correctly. Because people get it wrong all the time, in business it keeps me edgy, hard headed, and immune to obvious attempts at charm.

Outside of work I have given up fighting it and give people all three glorious syllables and I think my character has started to grow back into something that suits this rather delicious, rococo soubriquet.

Super Happy New Thing

2008-12-11T09:23:00.006Z

Taught myself to do filet crochet in the last couple of days. This is my first success based on a cross stitch chart based on a video sprite. Is that meta meta craft? Or meta geek meta craft? Greek Feta?

I'll let Chomsky make the call on that.

Anyways... Ta. Da.

I figure if I get good at this I can do an entire pac man screen.

Untitled Turtle

2008-12-11T09:13:00.002Z

I was in Hawaii in January and took a picture of this very comfortably basking green sea turtle on a black sand beach...

I needed to be reminded that some where a warm sun is shining and it won't be cold and dark forever.

No Movie for Young even-star

2008-12-10T09:05:00.006Z

I was raised in an environment where, when one looks at somebody, one doesn’t see gender, race, religion, or anything else resembling a label. People are people and they are judged on merit.

So sometimes, even though I work in a male dominated area, I forget that I am surrounded by men and that, lor’ blessem, they ARE different from us women.

Everyone at the office has been telling me that I HAVE to see No Country for Old Men. It is the BEST. FILM. EVAR.

How could so many people be wrong? It has been on my play list for a while but I didn’t have the opportunity to see it until last night.

I had to turn it off after an hour when I saw there was another 57 minutes to go.

It was truly dreadful.

Calling something Independent is not an excuse for half assed writing, poor acting, and some kind of oblique poorly executed homage to the spaghetti western.

So I don’t get it. What is the appeal for my male techie work mates?

Was it the no talking? Which to me was only indicated a poor or unpolished script.

Was it the no sound track? Something that can and has been in other films, used to great effect even in conjunction with the no talking.

What I assume was meant to be a taut and thrilling chase across the monumental back drop of wild and suburban Texas just umm wasn’t. If the goal was to portray a tedious, awkward, blood spattered stroll across the monumental back drop of wild and suburban Texas involving cliché non-characters they nailed it but I am wondering who they thought would pay to watch such a thing.

Perhaps the last 57 minutes is an unstoppable juggernaut of excitement, wit, character, and story. I will never know.

Maybe a ponderous provisional two-hander was all they could afford. But really if that is all you can afford maybe you should like save for another year and hire a writer. All the pretty camera work in the world is not going to save you.

Perhaps the guys like it because they can project. Either on to the rugged resourceful MacGyver-esque Marlborough man Llewellyn or, even more disturbing, on to the relentless sociopathic man-o-action Anton.

The IMDB says this film won awards. I really just do no see the appeal. Some one help me out here.

I rarely walk out of a film. What am I missing? There must be something. Social commentary? The chillingly accurate recreation of 80’s Texas?

Would telling me change my opinion of the film?

So it looks like the even-star is down on culture these days. Two bad reviews in a row.

No Country for Old Men gets a huge steaming pile of Y-fronts each pair of which has been worn for 30 consecutive days, turned inside out and worn for a further 30 consecutive days before being stuffed with the others into a vinyl gym bag, sprayed with a fungal accelerant, and left near warm radiator for a week.

Professor even-star Presents Today's Beginner's Philosophy Assignment

2008-12-08T12:07:00.003Z

Having Jeremy Clarkson's life would not compensate for the fact that one would have to be Jeremey Clarkson in order to have Jeremy Clareson's life.

Discuss

On Eloquence

2008-12-05T11:38:00.002Z

Goddamfuckingsheisterbastardcamelfacedsonofawhoremongerandahellboudfilthystinkingtoadmutant mechanic

even-star == Awsome

2008-12-03T15:47:00.004Z

My job is thankless. Most jobs are. I get paid to do my job. I don’t see why I should expect much else.

I do not rescue kittens from the jaws of ferocious rampaging alligators. I don’t perform free organ transplants for homeless children. Even if I did, my job would still be thankless since I don’t think I would be any good at doing either of those things.

There might be screaming and dismemberment. Blood almost certainly. Arrests definitely.

But not a lot of thanks.

Every so often though someone I work with or for gets it into their head that I am the most awesome ass saving thing on the planet.

I design, build, test, and implement large browser based business applications. People use these systems for ordering stuff, archiving documents, proofing artwork, managing stock, logistics, and content.

I do not design, build, test, and implement anything that might have any bearing negative or positive on any one’s physical, emotional, or intellectual well being.

No one is going to die if I fuck up.

The corollary being that no one is going to live if I get it right.

I am perfectly happy with this Schrödinger-like state of affairs

We have a saying in the office: People are dying in Iraq.

Does it really matter so much that you can’t upload your marketing campaign artwork for three hours while we deal with some one else’s urgent problem?

No it doesn’t.

If you don’t get your customized business cards with your stupidly inflated job title and qualifications on it because you never told us that these could run into hundreds of characters is the world going to end in a fiery ball of fire? Is YOUR world going to end in a fiery ball of fire?

No. It isn’t.

And yet you have to make life for everyone who is trying to help you intolerable.

Sometimes I get the chance to make someone’s work life more tolerable by making a client happy. Getting something done. Knowing the answers.

Today I got something done and someone said thank you. Thank you for making this so much easier. Thank you for helping us out.

Apparently it has been a pleasure working with me.

I didn’t want it to but it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling.

So I feel kind of dirty now in a corporate whore kind of way. I know this is wrong because he really was so sincere.

And it is so cute that he thinks, even for just a day, that I am the most awesome ass saving thing on the planet.

One Pill Two Pill Red Pill Blue Pill

2008-12-02T08:38:00.002Z

even-star in no way condones the use of drugs (illicit or otherwise) with out medical supervision or advice, or rebellion against our glorious and merciful robot over lords.

Slowly reposting all the charts from Origami Snail. Converting them all to jpgs and keeping them on flickr. Mmmmmm... Flickr. I resisted signing up there for a long time but I actually really like it. For the large version of the chart click --> HERE

Honourable Mention: In Which even-star Courts Obscurity, Finds Publicity on Flickr

2008-12-01T09:22:00.005Z

Thank you to Crafty Crafty for picking up my critter Christmas cross stitch charts on Flickr and featuring them in her Christmas Crafting post. Check out Crafty Crafty. Tons of good info and inspiration there.

Also a thank you to Craft Magazine online blog Craftzine. They liked my techie sampler!

A Skag Baron Named Savage Henry

2008-12-01T09:08:00.003Z

Or I should say rather Skag Bunnai

Addendum 02/06/2009

As of this date if you google Skag Baron this blog is the number 1 result.

Me and Henry are rather proud. Proud google whores of the infinite, labyrinthine, and depraved bordello that is the interwebs.

Happy White Rabbit Day!

Right Up There With "Let the Wookie Win"

2008-11-27T09:05:00.002Z

A little cross stitch sampler to stuff the stocking of your significant sofware enthusiast.

A better version of the chart can be downloaded from my flickr

I Regret Nothing

2008-11-25T15:51:00.003Z

Except for that mahoosive pile of greasy, juicy, succulent, stinky french fries that I had for lunch.

Everyone decided to have fish and chips for lunch today. Rather than fight the reekage I joined in.

Gym is going to need to be punishing this evening.

The Fewer You Get, the Better It Is:In Which even-star Finishes a Book and Neil Stephenson Has Some Splaining To Do

2008-11-24T15:21:00.006Z

Anathem
By Neil Stephenson

For those of you who have been waiting for the father of cyber punk to deliver an exciting, thought provoking follow up to Snow Crash you are going to have to wait.

Probably for ever.

For those of you who enjoy a ponderous compilation of tired thought experiments interspersed with an unoriginal alien invasion narrative jump on board the Anathem train and ride that sucker into the so-boring-it-gave-me-cancer sunset. Take plenty of water. It is a VERY long ride with about a million stops.

If I hadn't had this in audio book format I wouldn't have bothered finishing it and I actually now regret spending so much time getting to the end.

If you want some good speculative fiction read Frank Herbert. If you want to know how not to write speculative fiction read Anathem. I would not have minded so much if the point hadn't been made at the beginning of the book that it is SUPPOSED to be speculative fiction because really it isn't.

A directionless morass of philosophy, meta physics, flat characters, and poor story telling I am not really sure what the heck it is meant to be. One comparison I can draw is Nicholas Nickleby. A weak and simplistic narrative crammed full of parables to illustrate of the author's thoughts and opinions on chosen topics.

The thing that bugs me is that I know that Stephenson is a good writer. He has written two books of speculative fiction that I really enjoyed. Maybe he is simply trying too hard to escape the stigma of the now over-done genre that he co-created. Maybe that is all he had in him. I just wish he would stop before another one of my heroes makes an ass of himself.

It was such a disappointment when I wanted soooooo badly to like it and to have something cheerful and positive to post about.

I am giving Anathem 9 pairs of pants. It would have been the dreaded PILE but really I have got to give the guy credit for staying power (it is interminably long) and for having the balls to get such a huge piece of crap published.

Christmas Bunny

2008-11-21T10:08:00.002Z

Has an impossibly cute little nosey

But WILL cut you if denied parsnips.