The Mugi Saga

Loving and creepy at the same time.

This ridiculous fathead is Mugi (pronounced "Moogie," more on that later).

For Christmas, Tim gave me a cat. He tried to keep it a secret, but I knew what he was going to do the minute he said, "we should wait and exchange gifts after we get back from Colorado." Cats are a gift that notoriously don't age well in wrapped packages.

Despite the "Christmas" intentions, it took us weeks to actually adopt him because of all kinds of complications, including an upper respiratory infection. Finally the vets called and said, "I think he'll get better faster and be happier at home with you." God, she wasn't kidding. I've never seen such a happy cat.

People are always giving me cats. Maybe there's something on my face that says, "I'm a sucker for anything furry." It could also be that I frequently say things like, "Aggghhhh. I wish I had a cat/dog/hamster/squirrel/lemur, etc."

In high school Trina picked up a cat from a box outside the grocery store and brought her to me as a "surprise." I love this. This type of impulsive behavior is why she's in my wedding party.

Srsly Fat Face.

In college, Tim's sister Carly found two kittens under a truck parked outside of a Chinese restaurant. They were small enough that both of them fit in the palm of your hand at once. It was fun to be a full-time college student with two kittens who were too young to be weaned, one of whom liked to sleep in my hair, suck on my ears and pee on my head.

Still, I'm lucky that these people thought of me when random cats appeared because they all turned out to be hilarious, charismatic cats. Which is not just something I'm saying because I'm crazy cat lady (which I probably am). There is such a thing as a boring asshole cat, I know.

In general cats can be compared to Hollywood celebrities. Don't tell me you haven't looked at your grandma's cat and thought of like, Elton John or Joan Rivers. They're simultaneously standoffish and attention-craving. They can be picky and weird and moody and their contributions to society range from "etherial" to "box of crap."

But some of them totally win.

i'm upside down, showin u my bellies.

Case in point: Mugi.

This cat is like the Johnny Depp of cats. What I imagine it would be like to live with Johnny Depp in real life. If he were a cat.

Mugi likes to slink around the apartment, meow philosophically, and then fall over and roll around.  Rolling around is his favorite hobby.

He also enjoys sitting as close as he can to your face (sometimes on your face) and reaching his ENORMOUS paws out and touching you.

He purrs almost constantly (i.e., right now), and unlike any cat I've ever met, he loves, loovvesss, to have his belly rubbed. He will wedge himself into ridiculously uncomfortable spaces, like a Chilean miner, but he leaves his belly tantalizingly exposed.

I think he might fit.

Basically, he's lived here for about three days and he's already sneezed on everything I own, discovered every hiding place in the whole apartment, lost his collar, made a disastrous mess in the guest bathroom, and established that he is in charge.

If that doesn't sound like A-list behavior to you, then I don't know what does.

Postscript: His name is "Mugi," which was my "Blue Ivy Carter" moment. The shelter named him "Moogie" which is an utterly meaningless name (though it's better than "Pampers" and "Panera," the names of some of the other cats up for adoption). Given the choice we probably would have named him "Huckleberry" or "Thucydides" but my one real superstition is that you can't change an animal's name. However, according to the illustrious Alsn, "Mugi" is the Japanese word for Barley. (I can just hear Gwyneth Paltrow saying those words. Whatever.)  He's definitely a barley kitty, in that he would hide in it and then jump out and love you to death.

Raspberry Mint Chocolate Smoothie

I like to have smoothies for breakfast in the morning but am lazy and usually just make some combination of frozen fruit/yogurt/juice/banana. Monday I whipped this up as an alternative and, as my colorful grandfather would say, I'm as pleased as a pig in shit with myself. All of the ingredients are pretty good for you (even the cocoa--don't try to tell me otherwise, I will Google fight you into the ground) and I feel not a shred of remorse for having had three of these this week.

Macca approves.
Except I was probably supposed to take the picture
before I inhaled the smoothie.

Raspberry Mint Chocolate Smoothie

In blender add:

1 cup frozen raspberries

3-4 sprigs of fresh mint leaves with the stems discarded

1 tbsp dutch process cocoa

1 tsp agave or honey

1 cup chocolate almond milk (or enough to just cover the other ingredients in the blender)

Blend all this together on low, then switch to medium for ten seconds or so. Enjoy!

Also, Happy Friday!

Crazy Talk

Being unemployed would be a lot more difficult if it weren't cold outside.  Most days, I feel a very strong urge to go outside and make something of myself, but then I open the door and feel how cold it is. I have no idea how people in Greenland accomplish anything.

That would be a good research project to conduct in my "time off."

Here are some book reviews.

Damned
By Chuck Palahniuk

This is the seventh book I've read by ol' Chuck. At this point, I may just be reading them out of habit--a yearly antidote against Fox News and Christmas time car commercials. If, like me, you have ever read anything by him, you already know that this book is not exactly PG. If you have eyeballs, you also probably judged that from the cover.  The beauty of Chuck Palahniuk is that, while his books can be aggravatingly childish and will occasionally make your face bleed with the Brett-Easton-Ellison-level of depravity described within, he's not writing filth just for the sake of filth. Damned, like many of his other novels, offers a heavy critique of modern culture with a lot of satire, irony, and dark humor smeared on top. Don't read it if you can't define the word "glib." It's about the teenage daughter of a Hollywood power couple, who finds herself in Hell after dying of... a Marijuana overdose. Palahniuk's hell is both totally different from, and exactly what you would expect it to be.

I would recommend this book to: Kristin and anyone who hated The English Patient, so, not you Dad. :/

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)
By Mindy Kaling
(Audio Book)

Like Bossypants, by Tina Fey, the audio version of Mindy Kaling's book has the distinct drawback that you can't see the pictures and you can't really lend it immediately to all of your friends. However, the benefit of the audio version is that you come to feel like Mindy is your bff and the only thing stopping her from texting you is pretty much the fact that she doesn't have your number... yet.

Mindy not only plays Kelly Kapoor on The Office, but is also the only female writer on the staff. This in itself is enough to make me want to read the book (Is Rainn Wilson really as insane as he looks?). But the book also has essays about other hard-hitting topics like cupcakes(!) and karaoke and being chubby. Yes, obviously, I want to know what hilariously funny people my age think about everything. The chapter "Why Do Men Put on Their Shoes So Slowly?" is not only hilarious, but probably worthy of serious scientific investigation. I seriously want to know, why do men put on their shoes so incredibly slowly?

I would recommend this book to: Kacie, Jessica L., Jared (I know you already read it, Boo.)

The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You
By Eli Pariser
(Audio book)

Do not buy the audio book version of this book. It is an excellent, well-researched book that requires at least minimum focus and concentration to comprehend and absorb what Pariser is trying to tell us, which is--I think--that the internet is a powerful tool for building communities and expanding our capabilities, but that the current course of search and social network technology is severely limiting the way we experience not only the internet, but the whole world, in a detrimental way. Got that? Whew.

It will be easier to explain if you just want to watch this amazing TED talk (which is basically the introduction to the book, BTW).



If you've ever felt like something about Google and Facebook (their targeted ads and seeming mind-reading abilities, for example) are just a little bit skeevy, but you can't put your finger on what, this book explains what's going on in language that is easy to understand and far from conspiracy theory crazy talk.

I would recommend this book to: my Auntie T-Bone, and um, others who use Facebook

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
By Stieg Larsson

I know, it took me like a hundred years. I don't think I have to convince anyone to read this.

I'll just say that it's easy to see why this book is the thriller for the new Millennium, pun maybe intended. Thrillers and detective novels of the past were founded on the principle that the most dangerous people in society were always outsiders: homosexuals, women, people with disabilities, anyone of a different race. Think of Peter Lorre in The Maltese Falcon. Could there be anyone more threatening to a white male than this effeminate man with an untraceable accent? And then there's the Femme Fatale, the woman who will seduce you and then kill you the minute you turn your back.

That so many people have enjoyed this book speaks in part to the fact that it's a gripping story, but it also has to do, I think, with a new attitude towards who can be "in" and who can be "out." It's amazing how far Stieg Larsson goes, with Lisbeth Salander, to shout in our faces that times have changed, are changing. And when you look at the types of crimes committed in this novel and the treatment of their perpetrators, there can be no mistaking this novel as a novel of the 21st century. The writing style may be simplistic but there is a lot going on.


I'm seriously not even going to bother recommending this. Sweden doesn't need my help.

Resolution Schmesolution

Here's a picture of some donkeys, just to make you happy.

I have once again run out of bookshelf space. 

This isn't really surprising since I obviously have a much bigger problem: my book addiction is still wildly out of control.

I have about 274 books that I own but haven't read yet (not including books on my Kindle).


TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY FOUR.

Under good circumstances, I can read about two books a week--but I don't, because I try to go outside every once in a while. That means that if I stop buying books right now and stop trying to accomplish anything else, I will have all of these books read by July of 2014.

I've never really been a "Resolution" kind of person because that kind of psychology inevitably fails me (and apparently lots of other people too). If I couldn't accomplish something I wanted to accomplish before some arbitrary date, I probably won't be able to accomplish it afterwards. Also, I generally like myself, and don't really want to go through a shame cycle every January.

Ah, the time-honored tradition of the shame cycle.

Nevertheless, last year (in March) I set the goal of reading 50 books in the year because I like goals with definite ends. (NaNoWriMo is a perfect example of this sort of goal.)

"I will work out more," would never cut it as a goal for me because it's not quantifiable. "I will work out 100 times this year" definitely would, not least of all because it would allow me to shop for some kind of notebook where I could cross off days, and after my 100th workout I could probably work out two extra times just to make myself feel extra smug, and then not get off the couch for the rest of the year. Goal accomplished! No guilt needed!

Anyway, I met and exceeded my 2011 goal. I read 64 books, which is enough for me to comfortably cross off the poetry collections and Kindle Singles that don't count and go with a solid 60.

This year, I can't be sure I'll read as many books with the wedding and everything else on deck. Instead, my goal is not to buy any books until I've finished reading at least 10 that I already own.  You heard me, no NEW books, until ten of the sad, lonely books on my "unread" shelf get moved over to the "read" shelf.

It seems like an easy goal, but for me that's like saying I'm not allowed to brush my teeth or eat a half of a chocolate cake by myself. I can and I will.

Be aware that this might increase my number of pleas for books as gifts. If I can't buy them for myself, that doesn't mean I won't try to get them through other nefarious means.

In case you're wondering, I'd really like a copy of Murakami's 1Q84.

Delete, Delete, Delete

Sometime while I was in Uruguay I got addicted to playing The Sims Social on Facebook.  Before that, it was Gardens of Time.  Before that, I played Plants V. Zombies on my phone.  This trend can be traced back in an almost unbroken stream that includes Snood and Collapse pretty much alllll through Centenary until we got the Wii, and on back through Jill of the Jungle, Commander Keen, Duke Nukem, Wolfenstein, Rooms of Doom, and about a million other DOS games that I could play for HOURS on end without stopping. I think I played Klondike so much during my year off between high school and college that it's amazing everything didn't appear to float before my eyes on a green felt background.

Most of the time I don't feel like all that time I wasted really put too much of a dent in my life. I haven't developed any weird deformities at least, and I have to edit my resume down to one page instead of up.

But holy crap, it's sort of time for the madness to stop.

Today I deleted The Sims off my Facebook account, and the sure sign that it was definitely time to blow that sucker up: I felt a little pang of physical pain when I clicked "delete." Because the games on Facebook are designed to be more addictive than crack cocaine and reality television combined, my addled brain actually thought for just one moment, "I'm erasing all my hard work!!"

Bitch, please.

Unlike solitaire and Wolfenstein, which you could play in an infinite loop and never asked anything of you, the new games are exactly like what I imagine your corner pusher is like. A little flashier, a little more street wise, and WAY more withholding. You can't play The Sims or Bejeweled or what-have-you on an infinite loop until your brain melts and you feel better and then go about your life again. Instead, they give you a little taste, (Here, have 15 "energy" or "coins" or whatever) and when that runs out, in order to even make the game minimally functional, you have to either,

a) wait around for the game to "recharge"
b) pay actual legal tender for fake, non-legit "gold" or "bux"
c) beg your friends like a pathetic asshole for more "life juice" to get your fix or parts to build your spaceship, etc.

AWFUL.

If I wanted to play games and feel bad about it, I'd go to one of the three arcades left in the United States and beg unsupervised teenagers for quarters.

Anyway, I have a wedding to plan and a novel to write and like, anything else on earth to do. I'm not gonna lie; I miss it already. I had finally saved up enough "Simoleons" in-game to buy a grand piano for my Sim, which took me about a week of hardcore unemployed time-wasting.  And the fact that I even dedicated more than 25 seconds thinking about that--more time than I've spent practicing my ukulele, for sure--is why it totally had to end.

The Audio/Biblio Club

I'm currently reading Anna Karenina. So.... If I don't write a book review now, it may be a while. Plus, I just realized I haven't written one since September. Like, as in, September.

For some reason I didn't read nearly as many books in Uruguay as I did in Panama. I'm going to blame NaNoWriMo. It's hard to read and write and hike Machu Picchu at the same time.

Also, there are two audio books on here. First let me say that even I am a little baffled by my recent trend of listening to audio books. But because I'm too lazy to cancel my Audible account, I keep ending up with credits and I have to use them on something. It's not that I necessarily have anything audio books per se, it's just that I'm the opposite of most people who like them.  Most audiobook listeners chose audiobooks because they don't have time to just sit around and read. On the contrary, I have nothing BUT time, so I have to invent tasks to do while I listen to an audiobook. Like crocheting a blanket, for example. And spinning my own yarn out of cat hair. Things haven't gotten that extreme yet, but I have about ten audiobooks in my queue, so look out.

Your next birthday gift could be very impressive. And maybe a little itchy.

God, No!: Signs You Might Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales
By Penn Jillette
(Audio Book)

There are really two parts to this book that are woven together sort of willynilly. Part one is covered under the, "Signs You Might Already Be an Atheist" portion of the title, and part two falls under, "Other Magical Tales." The two parts really have to be rated separately and will appeal to you differently depending on what you're in the mood for.

If you know anything about Jillette's argument style from the show Bullshit on Showtime, you probably know what you're getting into concerning his arguments about religion. As an Atheist, it's nice to hear someone say out loud (or on paper, I suppose, if you have the book version) that it is absolutely possible for atheists to have morals, principles, and a general philosophy of human decency. The sections of the book that are written about Atheism are by far the strongest and most interesting sections. Jillette is not only interested in Atheism, he suggests that the only useful form of Atheism is one that is unflinching and unapologetic.  I'm not as compelling as he is, or I would also have a show on Showtime, but suffice to say that his arguments made me feel awesome about saying, "I DON'T KNOW."

If you're mainly interested in boobs and magic tricks skip all of the philosophy and head to the more memoir-y sections of the book, which are replete with just that.  Did you know that Teller, the other half of "Penn and Teller" is actually a normal-sized person? He just looks small because Penn is like 6'9" tall? Yeah. The more you know. I'm less interested in these parts of the book because I really don't care what un-named hot models he dated, but I supposed it's good that the book it not one long tirade on Atheism, since there are enough of those.

Actually, I take it back, there are not enough of those.

The Hotel New Hampshire
By John Irving

Oh John Irving.  Master of taking random shit, slapping it on the page, and somehow making a book out of it.

I got the urge to read this book because somehow I learned that it was about a family who lived in a hotel with a bear. That's only a small fraction of it. Of course there's a bear.  Of course there's a football player. Of course there's a circus. And someone named Freud and someone named Egg.

This is not my favorite of the many John Irving books I have read, but it certainly deserves credit for engulfing you in the world of the Berry family, for whom it would be unusual if something usual happened. I got mad at the book about half way through for reasons I won't say. I don't want to spoil anything, but it wasn't a case of bad writing or boring plot that moved this book from the "like" column to the "not so much" column. Let's just say I didn't agree with Irving's narrative decisions.

I don't really know what to say. You don't read a John Irving novel to get from point A to point B. You read it to see how "normal" life is actually very strange and vice/versa. I just... Ugh. Why John?

The Invisible Mountain
By Carolina De Robertis

This novel was recommended to me by my friend Natalie at the Embassy in Montevideo when we arrived there. Uruguay has a rich literary history and bookstores on seemingly every corner, but it's almost impossible to find translations of any native Uruguayan books.  This one solves that problem because--TA DA!!--it's originally written in English.  De Robertis was born to Uruguayan parents in England and now lives, I believe, in the US. Fun!

This book is fantastic, and if you don't believe me, ask O Magazine, where it was number nine on the list of terrific reads for 2009. Would Oprah lead you astray? Would she?

This is the story of three generations of Uruguayan women in one family, in Montevideo and Buenos Aires, through the Peron era and revolution. It's one of those wonderful novels that combines history, mythology, a little bit of magical realism, vibrant story-telling, and great characters all in one package. Plus, you learn things without even trying. Did you know that Uruguay had a military dictatorship? Neither did I.

Town House
By Tish Cohen

I paid 99 cents for this book and thus my review might be a little higher than it would be if I had paid $9.99, if that makes sense. For 99 cents, this book was hilarious and fun to read. For $9.99, I might have wanted a little more out of it, maybe. It's the perfect beach book.  Too bad it's December.

Town House is about Jack Madigan, the agoraphobic son of deceased rock star Baz Madigan.  He lives in the titular town house with his teenage son and their deformed male cat, Mrs. Brady. He is tormented by three people: his ex-wife's marvelous new boyfriend, the realtor who is attempting to sell his town house out from under him, and a nine-year old girl who may or may not be climbing in through a whole in his wall. Oh, the high comedic value of anxiety disorders. It can't be helped.

I laughed out loud while reading this book multiple times. I almost wish they would make a movie out of it, but only if they could promise not to lose the irony oozing from the narrator's voice.

Blood, Bones and Butter
By Gabrielle Hamilton
(Audio Book)

Oh, foodie memoir. You are moderately charming, but you're mostly getting kind of old.

Anyway, here's the deal, go read the first chapter of this book right now. The first chapter is so charming and well written, so surprising and interesting, that it makes up for the fact that the rest of the book is kind of... whatever. The first chapter of this book could have been a short story in the New Yorker or The Best Non-Required Reading. I listened to it twice.

Alright, enough gushing. The funny thing about the rest of this book is that a lot of times when I hear or read things that food people write, I agree with them totally and completely, and I'm a little horrified by how pretentious they sound. Because that means I sound pretentious too. This book is like that.  Hamilton has had a really interesting life and I completely agree with everything she says about everything (YAY FEMINISM!), but after the first chapter this book still made me feel a little UGH. Is it because it seems sort of hip in the bad sense of the word? And almost impossible that so many of us (who is "us"? Middle class white people?) could suddenly have these feelings about food at the same time? I don't know.

Just go read the first chapter.

Win!

I verified my novel last night--more than 24 hours ahead of the midnight, November 30 deadline--at 50,608 words.

I almost don't want to talk about this experience because I don't want to jinx it.

Think of the one productive thing that you've always wished you could do but have always been too busy, lazy, or intimidated to do it. Now let's say that someone applies just the right amount of pressure, while removing all of the mental obstacles. There's no reason to say no.

Right now, the novel I wrote is not a masterpiece, by any means.  Two of the main tenets of NaNoWriMo are "No Plot, No Problem," and "Write First, Ask Questions Later" meaning, basically, that it's an exercise in getting lots of words down on paper, not in being your harshest critic. Over-thinking every word is one of the number one things that holds new authors back. You can't afford to get mired in a cesspool of self-criticism when you've got to write 1,667 words every day, which is the second great thing about the whole experience.

Having a visible daily goal, with a monster end-goal in sight (and a group of hundreds of thousands of other people trying for the same goal) makes an enormous difference. Even with all these incentives, it's incredibly difficult to set aside such a huge hunk of time that could be spent doing just about anything else, but it's really rewarding to look at your word count for the day and see that you've written not just one thousand, but three thousand words.

So... what to do with my novel? It needs so much work before it could ever be anything like something someone would want to read. (And I haven't even written the end yet.) But, cheesy as it may sound, I feel like now I'm better equipped to get it there.  And there are more ideas stewing in my head for something else. I'm so glad I did this. Period.