"I've married you so many times in my head."

Today someone unexpectedly told me this and delivered it such that it melted my heart and made me start to cry.
We all have those people who we go to sleep dreaming about, who we spend countless hours fantasizing about, who--through countless transfigurations of appearance and personality--we have always held a sacred spot in our hearts for.
It's surreal to imagine that I could ever be that person to someone.

Karen, I hope your holidays were wonderful.

A classy dog in my parents' living room.

-Camille

christmas turnips

I drew you a bunch of Christmas Turnips! Holly is one of my favorite things to draw- although you probably can't tell from the picture- and I've been drawing it the same way since I was 7. Somehow it's very mathematically pleasing to draw. Anyway, I couldn't decide what Turnip wanted to look like for Christmas, so I put them all up.

-Karen

bffs

-Karen

SHE IS NOT A PUPPY SHE IS A CAT



-Camille

Coming soon, I think

Turnip Adventures Comic strip!
with my friendly little puppy, Turnip.



-karen

Imagine looking at that and realizing that you aren't even 10% of the way finished.
Imagine looking at that and realizing that it is the ONLY THING now keeping you from being back with your sister.
Imagine looking at that and realizing that you need to sleep and pee and drink water before you can even attempt to start it, and that even when you're all primed up it will still be extremely difficult to fucking write.

I just want to hand this shit in right now, still in outline-form. I want to pack up my belongings while watching a Christopher Guest movie, and I want to be home knitting and wearing footie pajamas and drinking hot chocolate tonight. My grandmother bought someone in my family this rad vegan hazelnut hot chocolate a few years ago and we still have some. I do not like hot chocolate (I don't really like drinks other than water and dranks) but I REALLY LIKE THIS.
Also, I really like the scent of hazelnut coffee. It smells like popcorn. I dig.

Lastly, why are you so adorable.

-Camille

What's that, Karen? You have a final tomorrow?

I do not think I know how to use candles
Do I pour the wax out, depleting until it's gone?
Or do I leave the wax and let it replenish its sources
but depress the wick,which it lulls into a pool of paralysis?
I don't understand

So all my procrastinating in the beginning of last week really came back to bite me in the ass and face and my most private of parts. Because I didn't get to finish a 30-50pg term paper before the barrage of oral and written exams came my way, I won't be able to make it back to my family's home before the 23rd. I know it's just two days later than planned but that is also two days in which I have beaucoup d'added stress and in which I have to buy my own groceries and get dressed every single morning, cripes.

This time of year makes me very happy that I do celebrate Christmas. I have many friends who celebrate Hannukah or Russian New Year or nothing at all and they never seem so terribly attached to their holidays (if they have one). While I am not religious at all, I do enjoy the family get-together-ness of it all and I especially love the overuse of Christmas tree lights.



-Camille

In which I make a flow chart describing my accomplishments.

Love, Karen.

Something interesting.
Well, one thing interesting following two less-interesting things.

1. I stopped dreaming about salmon about a day and a half after writing my cured salmon-ccentric post. And thank goodness for that- I was in a real moral quandary. I am a vegan for ethical reasons, plain and simple. I am not vegan because it gets me attention, because it's good for my health (questionable, when you bake and CONSUME as much as I do), or because I want to be different/fit in. It was really hard for me to forgive myself for my craving flesh and I am glad that little phase is over. Now what I can't stop craving is...

2. CABBAGE is so delicious. In the weeks before I started my cleanse I realized just how perfect we were for each other. It is easy to cook, it tastes deliciousssss no matter how long or with what ingredients you cook it, it's unbelievably filling, it is CHEAP CHEAP chirp chirp, and I am able to digest it really well. I cook it with onion and garlic and apple cider vinegar and Braggs (and sometimes a little maple syrup and/or a little mustard) and it's amazing to eat all the livelong day.

3. I am probably completely, 100% wrong about this but, from all the facebook evidence I can gather, it would seem that the love of my life partner of my soul creamy dreamy could never do better than him still hurting my little delicate flower of a heart man who left me 359 days ago for his current wife is... getting divorced from his current wife?
I am not sure if I am right about this, but if I am, hm.



I am not filled with optimism and hope or anger or sadness or any sort of bitter happiness. All I can remark on is how utterly and completely disconnected I feel from all of it.
If it is true then it's a real shame. I remember part of what helped me not feel like the largest and weepiest pile of dirty tampons in the world was finding solace in the fact that at least he was happy with her. And I remember thinking, and perhaps repeating to myself and others in a slightly aggressive tone, that if he was going to leave me for anyone, it better be the one he spends the rest of his life with.
But, as I said, I am not sure about any of this. It's just facebook clues and as we all know, just as I cannot follow movie plots, conversations, or instructions, it's very very probable that my Sherlock Holmesing in this case has led me astray.

-Camille

yes

Finals means now I have to learn science
And Chinese essay on etiquette and privacy in the east and west.
Also paper.
Also other paper.
Also watching too much intermittent The Office to procrastinate.

PS Dear hair, please wash yourself
Love, Karen

FINALS PERIOD, DEAD UNTIL 1pm ON THE 21st.

In class, when discussing the due date of our 30-50pg. term paper:

"It's due the 17th. You can hand it in on the 23rd at the absolute latest but, out of consideration for me, don't do that. I mean, if everyone hands it in on the 23rd then I'm going to come back here and shoot you all."

Said by the most relaxed, non-violent, intellectual mad-scientist I've ever met. Up until today he had never even once joked in that sort of manner, so when he said this it was uproarious delight all around.

-Camille

Il neige!

And everything is beautiful.

And I am still looking up pictures of salmon.

-Camille

Firstly, my camera is broken. Or at least it's being overly-temperamental. The flash is 100% broken, but the camera itself sometimes--but not usually--takes pictures. This is a bummer but also perhaps a blessing, since I would definitely prefer it die now rather than when I'm in Nepal or New Zealand.

I'll be genuinely distressed if I don't have my camera when LOTR shit like this happens, I can promise you that.

Speaking of which! NUMBER TWO: tickets to Nepal are purchased; rabies, typhoid, hep A, tdap, polio, flu, and Japanese encephalitis vaccines have been administered (and paid for- JESUS CHRIST. The vaccinations were more expensive than the airfare!); and getting a visa is in the works. I am on my way and boy oh boy this is exciting.
I have a story about my booking the flight over the phone with a disarmingly flirty Nepalese man but I cannot tell it now because I have some business to attend to. Namely:
Third! Camille, what did you do on this fine day?
Oh, you stayed in bed, licked spoonfuls of maple syrup, and watched episodes of No Reservations and New Scandinavian Cooking all day? And although you put on pants and a shirt whenever you went to the bathroom or kitchen it was only an act, and you were nudie and in bed again before the bedroom door even had time to close? Hm, that sounds... exciting...?
CORRECT, IT WAS GREAT.

I can't wait to do it again.
And I'm actually going to hop to it right now.

Tina is legit my girlfriend

and Andreas is my brother.
This is my life and I refuse to believe otherwise.

WEIRD NOTE, though: I cannot eat a single thing featured on a single episode of No Reservations. Of this I am confident.
I have more luck with New Scandinavian Cooking but, still, it's quite fish-centric. This is where the weird note comes in.
I am on my 5th day of a cleanse and although I have been a bit hungrier this time around, I have had zero headaches, have not been terribly tired, and overall I feel completely normal. Except I cannot stop craving fish.
I haven't eaten fish in at least 7 years and I have not missed it once. Except now all I can think about is gravlax and all I want is gravlax and I am really confused by this and hope it passes before my cleanse is over. I won't eat fish after the cleanse--I would never buy it and certainly would not cook it for myself--but I am afraid that I will still desire it.
I have said before that the only things I have ever remotely missed in the non-vegan world are cottage cheese and scallops (I know, I know- probably two of the least tantalizing animal products out there. Scallops for the strong and comforting memories I have attached to them and cottage cheese for it's killer nutrition), but I've never jonesed for them hard like I'm jonesing for this.

HOMG.

Finally: I am listening to an episode of Fitzdog Radio with David Koechner. I think David Koechner is fucking hilarious and that is why I originally downloaded this. While it is great at times, Greg Fitzsimmons is a little too offensive for me. I've never been a feminist and it is very infrequent that I'll be really offended by racism or sexism (turned off, definitely, but rarely repulsed), but I am not enjoying what he says about women and sex and... he's unpleasant and SUPER ARROGANT.
OR SO IT WOULD SEEM by his conversation with Koechner about the size of his own penis.

-Camille

It's true, I am not a Dr. Who bitch, even though I am painfully aware that I would love it, and it would more than likely consume my every waking hour. But now that I have a tv in my room, and have figured out how to use it as a second monitor and thus stream Netflix onto my tv, I fully anticipate that I will soon be a Dr. Who zombie.
And- even though at this point my understanding of Dr. Who is minimal, Chris Hardwick has gushed over the show/Matt Smith enough times that I fully understood the magnitude that was the feat of getting him on the podcast. And yeah, it was not incredible, like Joel or Stan Lee or Rob Zombie. When the guest is not a comedian or well-loved (by us) actor, but an author, or another podcast personality, it's not mindblowing.
Chris has to play serious host, and they miss out on all the comedic possibilities because Chris is so nice and just talks to build up his guest, and then it's just a straightforward talk show about working hard and getting their big break, and their "process." I'm not into that. I want irreverence and nerdy science references and dirty jokes and Joel McHale. But not everyone can be Joel McHale.

Also, too, p.s., one more thing: Jordan Jesse Go! is another great podcast, and they've really grown on me, like an adorable two-headed fungus. Hardwick is a friend/sometimes-collaborator and that's how I discovered them. It's good shit.


Karen

WHAT A NERD.

Speaking of which: you are not a huge Dr. Who bitch like I am so maybe you weren't as wowed by the Nerdist being able to nag Matt Smith as I was but WOW! I can't believe they got him! It was like a dream come true (just like when they had Rainn Wilson on).
But, alas. Also like the Rainn Wilson interview, this one fell very short of my expectations. Oh well. It's only because they are interviewing the people behind the things we love so much (The Office, Dr. Who, House of 1000 Corpses) that I'm disappointed- I guess I just imagine everyone to be either HILARIOUS or exactly like their characters. Rob Zombie and Joel McHale have spoiled us.

Let me just say that very little makes me happier than the fact that he is married to the babeliest of megababes

I want to go home and just knit and not ever do work.
ALSO I want someone to sweep and scrub and wax the floors of my bedroom/suite every hour on the hour so I won't feel skeeved out when I walk around in socks. When I'm feeling anal I'll have four pairs of socks in rotation at any given time: one for shoe-wearin', one for in the hallway suite-trekkin', one for bedroom floor-shufflin', and one for bed-loungin'. This, surprisingly, does NOT lead to increased amount of laundry done, as each pair of socks is used so perfectly for its own specific function that none of them get so dirty at all, except the hallway suite-trekkin' ones, and I don't care about those guys anyway.

20 days until I'll see my sister again.

-Camille

Tell 'em what they want, Dan

Fun fact: The Elements is the song I used for my musical interlude during my in-class demonstration of how to make peanut brittle, in Mrs. Beuhler's AP Chem class.

Also, just in time for finals, here's a stressful Harry Potter game for you (all)
http://www.sporcle.com/games/GeoGod/allharrypotter

Karen

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday too, of the American holidays. It's the only day of the year that my parents ever closed the restaurant, and in general, I just like Thursdays. My parents would spend the day making elaborate seafood dishes with elaborate sauces, full of anise, scallions, ginger, and black beans, and Cyndy and I would make ourselves feel busy playing with dough and making imaginary food, or otherwise watching a lot of tv and eating candy from Chinatown.
Thanksgiving is also very near the time that my dad passed away, and though perhaps it should feel the opposite, this time of year, is very romantic for me. It's full of loss, but also memories, and every year I watch the particularly heart-wrenching episode of Hey Arnold where Mr. Hyunh is reunited with his long-lost daughter, and I cry, and then I make myself another plate of food. It's very therapeutic, and this is coming from someone who hates to cry. Someone once told me that they imagined I cry by shooting flames of fury from my eyes, and I'm rather pleased with this imagery. I like to pretend that's how the world thinks of me.



Karen

This is the first time she's ever done this. I thought you might enjoy seeing it.
Also, this is our official YouTube page!



Karen

Since I last updated:

It's been a beautiful day in the neighborhood

Thanksgiving! My favorite holiday!

My grandfather's memorial service was held, was lovely, and was really upsetting.

And I was taught how to make authentic and amazingly delicate strudel by one of my grandfather's old post-doctoral interns who flew in from Portland, OR just for the service (what's the right word? Student? Intern? Underling? Guy?).
And I have a crush on said guy. Hello German accent, blunt honesty, and ability to bake amazing treats for me while I stare with mouth agape. How attracted I am to you and how familiar you are...

I was surprised by how many of my grandfather's colleagues traveled from very far just to be present at the casual service. It made me feel very proud, very impressed by his accomplishments, and very hopeful that someday I might have so much of an influence that my colleagues will travel from far and wide in order to just give their final appreciation as they all did.

I don't want to talk about the service, but a few walkaway points:
1. my grandfather was really into physics, more than I had ever known (and has been author/coauthor for 30+ peer-reviewed papers)
2. he was also really into environmental activism more than I had ever known (and spokespeople from town councils and environmental groups were present and actually spoke up during the memory sharing time)
3. the man who fancies calling himself my "boyfriend" is self-absorbed and it is a good thing I never agreed to monogamy. During the service he pulled me to a corner, sat me down, and chided me and tried to guilt and upset me over not inviting him to every social event I had been involved in over the past week and for not texting and calling him more often over the past 2 days when I had been cooking for thanksgiving and organizing for the service nonstop. He was turning everything into himself, turning all of these created problems into my problems because they were my fault.
I had already been crying from the service's festivities, though, so perhaps he was just being cleverly opportunistic (as making me cry harder is not as bad as making me start to cry). I was crying out of anger and shock over his lack of respect for me, my grandfather, and the occasion, though- not because I was concerned that our relationship was rocky. That's something that always bugs me- my lack of true concern for the state of aspects of my life when I'm in the process of letting them rot.
But the whole situation is okay now. Because I am rubber and he is glue and I am insensitive and too relaxed and he is driving himself crazy, not me.
4. Not viewing the body is the way to go, and so is story-sharing time. They make for a celebration rather than a situation where everyone feels like they're dying inside.

Anyway, me and once-upon-a-time-post-doc (who is now a fancy schmancy professor at a good university in Oregon) have swapped emails and I think it is only a matter of time before we'll be swappin' the juices.

I'm almost ashamed to sign this one, but here you go.

-Camille

Oooh yeah, cubiclin' bitch ova hea.
Answerin' phone calls from France, speakin' french and shit.
Givin' my artistic opinion on web page layouts.
Exchangin' sultry glances with the profs.
Sendin' out facsimiles like it's NOBODY'S BU$INESS.
Everybody be learnin' my name.Chea.

-Camille

Bio test

warning: We are not profound today


2:47 am, anxiously awaiting thanksgiving and nothing else, least of all my very large and life obstructing biology exam in the morning. Attempts to study have so far yielded minimal success. Turnip is impatient, wants to go to bed, wondering why I am littering on the bed with all this not-bedtime paraphernalia, and keeps trying to climb on top of my hand when I turn the page. The cuter she is, the less I study, and she knows it.

I've spent much of this week watching Daria, and by much, I mean all my waking hours and generally seeping into my sleeping hours because I fall asleep mid episode and then am woken by the credits rolling, and then reluctantly shut my laptop off. I am a technology-dependent little podcast pop culture pod person. I made a video detailing most of this for you last night, during study session part I, but then I decided my face looked fat and therefore I cannot put it on the internet. So now I'm just talking about my vanity. I have it. Your weekly Turnip says hello!


-Karen

A year ago I was obsessed with this song.


It was at a time when I started discovering a home--my first true home--being created between myself and the man I loved.
And I've spent this entire year trying to get over the abrupt dissolving of that home and that love.

And I am so very grateful that I experienced that love, that comfort, that excitement, and that beautiful energy that every step in our lives should be filled with (but isn't necessarily).
And even though I want to heal more than anything else and want to heal completely and fast and feel whole again,

I am so happy that I know what love is and that I know what a "home" could feel like (at least in its beginnings)

because now I know what is not love and I know what is not comfort and I know what is not that kinetic, glowing, attractive, and effervescent energy

and I know that you can't fake or wish or force those things into existence.

And even though I often pretend I don't know that truth
and I pretend that I can force these things
or that these things can be forced by others
or, most of all and most shamefully of all, I pretend that I am not important or good or intelligent or kind or beautiful enough to deserve these feelings again

I do know the truth.

Everything might not work out in the end. But faking it until you make it isn't always the way to go.
And I need to stop being a coward, stop wasting time, stop breaking hearts, and stop having my heart bruised by my own inaction.
We're all going to die
and I will certainly die even sooner if I continue to be too afraid to make and break the bonds that would allow me to live again.


My grandfather's memorial service is on Friday.
and yesterday I made some notably delicious coconut rice pudding.

-Camille

This morning was not a good morning. I took a physics test which I was certainly ill-prepared for (lack of preparation + the subject I have never managed to figure out = recipe for ? ) and I CRASHED and BURNED. It actually surprised me how badly it went. I had a stomach ache, I was full of dread, and I was really stressing afterward. I need a C or higher to have this class count towards my major (or else I need to take it again) and I really needed a good grade on this test in order to pull up my average.
I was making myself feel physically ill thinking about it, so I decided to stop thinking about it. As soon as I came home from work I made myself a nice meal, I am now sitting barefoot and bare-legged on my bed (my default comfy pose), and I am going to take a nap after I finish this. I have lots more work to do tonight, but right now I am just going to live in the present and try not to think about the stresses that I just endured or the stresses that lie ahead.

You give me really good advice, Karen. The thing I kept reciting over and over in my head while I was trying to calm down was what you told me after I had experienced a really lackluster and confusing first date with someone I had really, really, really wanted to start a relationship with.

"Stop thinking about it. Turn the page."

So I did.

Su Blackwell

P.S. If Bill Nye the Science Guy only taught physics, we wouldn't have this problem.

-Camille

I know something about procrastination. I've been stalkerishly trolling the web for information on Kate Middleton all day.


This is a real thing. Who wants to buy it for me? Awesome.




Karen

The past 3 days have shown me just how good I am at procrastinating, just how out of whack my priorities are, and just how little I seem to give a damn about physics.

Um, might I just ask: How good did Farmer Hoggett look in that last post? Goooood. Another chreemeh man fa yew!

You know I am not joking. That movie with Judy Dench and Cate Blanchett, where Cate sleeps with her 13 year old student (we saw it together!!) made me so very angry. If Bill Nighy is your husband, why why why why why why why would you ever cheat on him, especially just for purely physical relations? DREAMBOAT STATUS HUSBAND, HELLO. You don't stray from that, no matter how many 13 year olds are a-courtin' you.

Hmm. I am obviously not going to find my focus here.
On Thursday my boyfriend from the summer is sleeping over and, assuming we don't get to brawling, he's staying Friday, too. I don't know that we're going to do as rabbits do, though, because I really really hate having sex on my own bed. I'll sweep the floor and I'll make sure my desk's top is cleared, but I do not do not want my bed to be harmed.
It's always been hugely unappealing to me, the idea of having sex in the place where I am going to sleep. I like my bed to be my sanctuary, where I can dream lovely dreams and feel comfortable in my own, private space. Where I can engage fully in emotionally painful rumination, or where I can indulge in completely blissful fantasies. I like having sex in bed, I do, just not my own bed.

Look at this amazing bed, Float, by David Trubridge for Okooko. Do I like it for the frame, or do I just like the background? I can't really decide... but I know that I find it simply breathtaking.

In sex, people get sweaty, my hair ends up everywhere, sheets get damp and when they dry they never feel or smell exactly the same. Laundry becomes a pressing issue in my mind and, truthfully, I can only think of a select few individuals with whom sex is worth cleaning the sheets twice. While I've lived in Manhattan, I've only done it at my place a handful of times, only doing it on my own bed THRICE (well, three evening/morning combinations). In the house I grew up in, I have only had sex in my bed once and that was only because I knew I'd be stripping the bed anyway (I was moving back to the city) and the occasion really did call for it. If I am your girlfriend, we will be having sex and lots of it wherever the fuck you or I want. Except for my bed. Call me unconventional (or, more appropriately, call me a bad hostess, don't give a shit) but I think I'm just keeping it real. True Life: Most people are not worth changing the sheets for.

P.S. Sorry for the surly and/or overly-slutty and/or tipsy postings as of late. I will remedy this later on in the week with some lovely and inspiring photographs from my recent lab in Sterling Forest.

-Camille

You are so sweet! Dissected pigs are really, truly, madly, deeply some of the things I'd least want to see.

Lest we forget my love for Babe, Farmer Hoggett, the Babe soundtrack, and adorable piglets.

I've gotten into this naughty habit of being a true-to-form college student and drinking and partying every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and having tummy aches every day. I am not going to lie- I understand the appeal. Despite the loveliness of always being in a good mood, usually being in interesting company, always feeling handsy and warm and amorous, and very rarely being annoyed by anyone else (I usually fill any social event's annoying-quota all by myself! Did you know that I am talkative and loud?), I think come November 29th I'm going to go on the cleanse again, which essentially precludes all fun substances, and which will do wonders for my system (again).

I am a little happily buzzed right now.

I wish I had a sugar-daddy to buy me all the expensive vibrators and hiking boots I've been wasting hours (and weeks and years, if we're keeping it real here) of my life drooling over as of late. That is what I truly desire.

G-Ki by Je Joue

I want this. I just bought a new $100 clitoral vibrator for $54 (STEAL, RITE?), but I want this more! And I want this, too.

Jimmyjane Form 2

When I go to gallery openings, I always think to myself that it's very conceivable that some older man would want to have me as his little pet. But then it gets to real life and I realize... that should not happen (and I am not the type of woman/person who enjoys accepting gifts from others- it makes me feel extremely awkward). ENOUGH of that.

I find it disturbingly pathetic that so many people (largely men) have to resort to craigslist in order to have simple, vanilla sex. I mean, I can understand why you would use the site if you had a rare and specific sort of kink that you want a fully game and enthusiastic partner for (hence the need for advertising). But for simple in and out, hands and mouths and peepers... I don't know. Maybe I am biased as a woman (where it seems like it's easier for us to find situations where we can have simple sexual encounters), but still. It doesn't seem that hard here in real life.
Man oh man, delete this if you wish, Karen. I won't be offended.



-Camille

In honor of my fallen blackberry, here is a montage of some of our memories together

I left out some of the most interesting pictures- from my fetal pig dissection lab- just for you.

Karen