All important things in this journal are friends only. Well, maybe not important but certainly things that I do not much care to broadcast. Leave me a comment if you want to be friends or send me secret presents through the post!

I am probably less likely to add you if I know you in person but that's not to say that I won't. ... Except I probably won't.

I know everyone has anxiously been awaiting this for the past year so here:

( Best books I read in 2008. And a disappointing one. )

Tomorrow is my day off and I have some serious plans! What will that entail? A quick check-up at the optometrist in regards to my new prescription! A dentist appointment! I am nervous about that because I still have an occasional mean cough and I am worried about that happening when the hygienist is jamming at my gums.

I also need to do some cooking! I'm going to make me some baking powder biscuits with white bean gravy and tempeh sausage crumbles. Maybe the spicoli burgers from Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan. And I want to make a dessert but I don't know what. I'm leaning toward either cookies or brownies.

Some updates at Vegan Duckling!

Has anyone else read about how the Bush administration is trying to have IUDS, birth control pills, and emergency contraception relabeled as "abortion"? I just can't even believe this. Why do most women have abortions? Unwanted pregnancy. What prevents unwanted pregnancies? CONTRACEPTIVES. AHHHHHHHHFUCKHHHHH! I just don't get it.

A lot of people still think Plan B (emergency contraceptive) is an abortion pill. It's not. At all.

This is all so simple, really. Abortion? Terminating a pregnancy. Birth control? Preventing pregnancy.

And these are some of the most powerful people in the world.

The library got Rock Band today so I took it home to play with it. I am a rock star, eljay! It would be nice if they would come out with a game filled with songs that I know but eh, Rock Star has Hole so I got to pretend to be Courtney Love and everything is okay.

Today included:
- getting attacked by animatronic babies in Target.
- a man shielding his child from me and Jenn (we were just walking past!).
- Jenn spitting out water on my hands. Twice.
- sleepiness.

I found a really amazing place on craigslist and emailed the people renting. I don't think I'll get it because of my age (they are all 6-8 years older than me] and because they want someone to move in a couple weeks before I am able to. But there's an apple tree! And a chicken coop (with 5 hen friends!)! It's close to everything that I want to be close to! Garden space! No cats!

I also feel like lots of other people will be applying to live there. Trying to find roommates seriously intensifies my low self-esteem. AND MY FEAR OF REJECTION.

Tomorrow morning I will be on an airplane to Portland with my family for a week of... doing things in Portland. Like buying vegan marshmallows from Food Fight and making s'mores with my brother! Eating everything that Sweetpea has to offer! And assorted other things that I can't think of right now!

Um. I like exclamation points. Obviously.

I am obviously trying to see how often I can post before livejournal explodes. When it rains, it pours - jerks! Here are the rest of the Jenni/Stephanie pictures and one picture of me being an asshole.

Oh, at one point I accidentally switched my camera to manual mode and didn't notice until a bit later. So some of the pictures are completely out-of-focus artistic.

( Welcome to the Greatest Show on Earth )

My new cooking blog!:Vegan Duckling

It is kind of ugly right now and um, I don't really know how to fix that. I know how to change it to uglier things, but that seems stupid. I want a nice header!

I think it's a nice start. And I think it's a pretty cute name. Go me!

I think I am going to start a food blog using blogger. It will probably be mostly reviews (and pictures!) of recipes from cookbooks/other blogs because I am not tempted to make my own recipes. Nor am I confident in my ability to do so, but I digress!

The main point of this post is that I am horrible at naming things. I thought about naming it "Duckling", but that was taken. Then I thought about calling it "Vegan, Darling" but that was taken too! LIFE!!! So. Yes. Suggestions. It doesn't have to say "vegan" in the title, but extra points if you can work it in there. Preferably something that references food? HELP A SISTER OUT.


Poll #1200696
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 2

Vegan Food Blog Name Suggestions!

Here are some of my favorite food blog names, to get your pretty brains working:
- "yeah, that 'vegan' shit"
- "get sconed"
- "don't eat off the sidewalk"
- "have cake, will travel"
- "hezbollah tofu"
- "what the hell does a pinkhairedgirl eat?"
- "seitan is my motor"
- "seitan said dance"
- "where's the revolution?"

I love grocery shopping. I love that I am financially comfortable enough (for now) to giggle and toss things into the grocery cart. Except I don't actually toss anything because what if I bruised my eggplant?

Today I bought a bunch of things that I don't think I've ever had before. Or had without noticing/thinking about it. Chard! A single hot chile! A shallot! Chopped ginger (they didn't have any fresh)! Possibly baby bok choy (the labels at the store suck)! Agave Nectar! A vegan/gluten-free frozen pizza! A whole eggplant! Since going vegan I have wanted to try every fruit and vegetable that has ever existed.

I also had to buy firm tofu because my Whole Foods almost never has the extra-firm tofu that my heart yearns for. But I'm going to freeze it and hope that the new texture will make up for the squishiness. They also only had Field Roast sausages and they do not tempt me in the way that the smoked tomato deli slices do. The sausages come in Italian (which has fennel seeds in it and I HATE fennel seeds), Mexican Chipotle (I think this might be too spicy for me), and Smoked Apple Sage (which is almost perfect except sage can blow me).

Tonight I made Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy for the first time in months. It was also the first time that I've made it using nutritional yeast. And OH MY GOODNESS, is there anything that nutritional yeast doesn't make better? The answer is no. I want to inject it.

I also bought vegan ice cream for the first time in years. I was hoping that they would have Temptation but they didn't. Which is kind of weird because it's made by my fellow vegans, Chicago Soydairy. Instead I bought some Purely Decadent, which was purely pee-my-pants good.

There are two kinds of compliments I use for food. Either they make me want to pee my pants or I want to rub the food on my face/head. It's weird that people don't hire me to write reviews.

I am going to make these things with my new food!:
- Baby Bok Choy with Crispy Shallots
- Marinated Italian Tofu
- Stir-Fried Leafy Greens (Chard!)
- Spicy Peanut Eggplant Soup
- Foccacia Bread
- Seitan Ribs

In conclusion, food. FOOD FOOD FOOD. I like to talk about food, think about food, make food, and shove food into my face.

I feel like all my entries are complain-y so I am going to write about nice things!

- I am really excited about buying my bike a basket. I maybe considered wrapping it and having a party for my bike but I'm not going to do that because I'm not crazy!
- Next Saturday (the 14th) I will be on a plane with my family to see Portland for the first time ever (and maybe hang out with Nicole if she is not too busy and I am not too full with yummy food!).
- I am trying to trick Mandy into being my Portland realtor. Also, in my head I sometimes call her Mandy Smellson because I am 5-years-old.
- I have a big list of food I want to make that is titled "Things I Want to Put in My Stomach".
- I listened to the Vegan Freak podcast while I was walking home today and it was lovely. Usually I just listen to music but then I thought that a podcast would be a nice change. And two adorable vegans talking about Oprah's vegan "cleanse"? ADORABLE.
- Venture Bros. season premiere! I ordered a Guild of Calamitous Intent t-shirt! The only thing that would have made it all better would have been a cameo by my one true love, Dr. Orpheus.

I'm totally distracted from my list because I am thinking about how cute my bike is going to be with a basket. I'm going to stitch up a little cloth lining for it! I am going to carry books and produce in my basket! BASKET BASKET BASKET. But I'm not obsessing over it or anything.

Jenni and I went to Target and tried on ugly clothes. We are party people.

( Ugly Clothes Fashion Show '08 )

Oh my goodness, I just finished watching Teeth. Never has vagina dentata been so awe-inspiring. Some of the gore was a little bit much for me but other than that... fantastic! Never before has a movie made me want to yell: "VAGINA-TEETH ACTIVATE!"

It definitely cheered me up.

Newsies: great movie or GREATEST movie?

I was going to make a poll, but the answer is so obvious that it seems pointless. Obviously that film was the pinnacle of Christian Bale's career. Although Swing Kids is pretty impressive (Swing heil, motherfuckers!).

I can't stop listening to "Lonesome Organist Rapes Page Turner" from No, Virginia (the new Dresden Dolls album). So here it is:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/p4zrtd

"O darling, you're charming. Please don't find it alarming if I pull this stop out to free up a hand for heavy petting"

Okay, so here is my big news that I mentioned awhile ago. In August I am moving to Portland with this lady:



If you are friends with Miss Crowley, then you probably recognize Katie. This picture is from two years ago and I probably could have found something more recent but look! She is eating a cooking while making me cupcakes and clearly is in a state of bliss! Perfect!

The main issue I'm having now is figuring out how to move all my stuff. It looks like I will be renting a Uhaul and driving the 30 hours out there. But Jenni is going to try and take off work to drive with me so that would be perfect! If not, I will probably make my little brother do it.


In unrelated news, I drank one of my dad's pear ciders (after asking if I could have it, of course) a couple nights ago and it was delicious. 8-proof juice, essentially. He picked up some more from me today because he was going past the shop that sells them anyway (it's a little bit out of the way) and got some raspberry cider by the same company. They are by Woodchuck and you should google them because their labels are adorable. A little woodchuck holding a little piece of fruit! And that's how I like my liquor - precious.

The universe is aligning for Miss Crowley's visit! What do I mean by this, I hear you asking. I was looking at museum websites to see what exhibits would be going on while she was here and (lo and behold!) the Field Museum is having an exhibit on mythical beasts! Unicorns! Mermaids! I am peeing my pants right now!


I have been trying to think of a feminist tattoo for the past forever and I came up with an idea that I kind of really like? It would be the feminism symbol (woman symbol with a fist in the middle) but instead of the circle just being black, it would say "revolution" in typewriter font? I don't know! I'm still working on it!

Texas was lovely and I will post pictures from it later. My aunt told me a story about when she got her tattoo. I think it must have been in the 70s and she and one of my other aunts were visiting my uncle in LA. They were walking in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre, looking at the stars, and saw a tattoo shop and decided to go in. The tattoo artist told her that she must smoke a lot of pot because she was bleeding so much. Doesn't it sound like something out of a movie?

The Jenni/Stephanie roadtrip has been canceled due to soaring gas prices and our need to save money for tattoos and unicorn statues responsible adult things. Instead, Jenni is going to come out to Chicago and we are going to go to museums and bookstores and look at sex toys while thinking of Mandy. We have not seen each other in 2 years! Last time we saw each other there was a lot of punching, Next!, tattoo-getting, and... napping. HOW ARE WE GOING TO IMPROVE ON THAT?! I don't know, but we will!

I keep starting and stopping with writing my zine. The formatting fucks me up too. Do I want backgrounds? I have a big thing full of magazine clippings that I started back when I was in high school, do I want to use those? I just need to stop thinking about it, pull my typewriter into my lap (just kidding, that would break my legs), and write about feminism and tattoos and my favorite foods.

I haven't slept well in weeks. What's the deal, body?

My ink ribbons came in the mail today! I didn't have time to try them out, so I hope they are the right ones and, you know, work. But (holy crap!) I'm excited. Maybe I will start writing tonight because I will be alone from 9 to around midnight. I will probably be exhausted so it might all be gibberish but that's okay because gibberish can be art too.

Last night I had another dream about working at Early to Bed. I dream about it all the time! Obviously I am destined to be a sex educator, right?

It is supposed to get up to 52 degrees tomorrow! Holy crap! After that, it will get a little colder but still! I can feel spring grabbing at my wrists and pulling me outside for picnics and tumbling down hills!

I think tomorrow will be nice. I will go to work for a little while and probably be tired because I have stayed up far too late tonight. Then I will come home and bake gluten-free, soy-free, vegan chocolate chip cookies for me and my dad. Then I will drag out the old typewriter and see if the ribbon has dried up. Where does one even buy new typewriter ribbons? That one has been in there for so long, over a decade at least. Maybe two. Hmm, there is a decent chance that the ribbon is as old as me.

Maybe I will make cabbage wraps tomorrow as well. I've never had cabbage but in one of the communities I frequent, someone posted delicious looking cabbage wraps and I thought, "well, why the hell not."

The sun is staying up later and getting up earlier, I love it.

Today I watched 5 hours of Baby-Sitters Club movies with Andrea, Jenn, and Colin (albeit reluctantly and also not really watching). It was beautiful and well worth the wait. 5 hours pretty much breaks down to 10 videos, carrots, samosas, and a certain someone getting all her stuffed buffies and trying to balance them on her leg.

I keep meaning to pull out the old typewriter and seeing if the ribbon is all dried up or not. I have wanted to write a zine since I was a freshman in high school and that is an awfully long time to put off doing something just because I think I am uninteresting.

I need to cut my hair but I kind of want to go and get it styled. Except I have a (reasonable) fear of hairdressers. They always fuck it up! And I only like to spend money on used books and portobello mushrooms.

Cansei de Ser Sexy used to annoy me a little but lately I have been liking them a lot. They are just the right amount of trashy, I think. And I like that their name translates to something like "I am tired of being sexy." Aren't we all.

I think I will probably be getting this:




on my right inner forearm (right beneath the elbow) sometime in the next couple of months. I don't know what to do about the water lines but it looked weird when I erased them. I like this picture the best because it will kind of be like it is looking up at me.

It's from Make Way for Ducklings for those who don't recognize it. I am nothing if not a duckling.