"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