all time low

Bullet points are the only way to deal with this information:
-I am not certain that I brushed my teeth today or yesterday.
-I weighed myself before and after a bowel movement. I lost 1.5 lbs.
-I can't remember the last time I brushed my hair. Generally, it's clean, but rarely brushed.
-I have worn a pair of pants (GUYS! PANTS!!!) for nine days. In a row. That's correct. Pants. 9 days. NINE. They have not been washed, don't worry.
-I never wash my face at night unless I am sharing a bed with someone.
-I ate ice cream for breakfast this morning.
-That breakfast was eaten at 11:35 am.
-For the past two days, I haven't left my house until , at the earliest, 2pm.
-There was a span of time within the last two weeks wherein I couldn't see my floor in my bedroom.
-I haven't gone to bed earlier than 3 am any of the nights that have been December.

But damnit all! I have got to get an outline, annotated bibliography and draft of my thesis proposal to my adviser tomorrow. I find an insane need to have her validation and approval, and so I am working my ass off tonight to make it happen (don't be fooled, this blog post took three minutes to write and I will be back on my game after this tiny break).

This is my writing song. 

(and some secret information: The janitor who empties the trash in my office, which is where I currently am, smells amazing. He must wear the most delicious cologne... He came and left over a half hour ago, but I can still smell him and, DAMN. I know that is weird but really. REALLY.)

rancid butter

the best class I ever took in college was called "The Cultural History of Medicinal Plants." I learned more in that over-filled auditorium than in any other classroom I have ever been in. Perhaps it was because it was almost entirely NEW information, and in so learning, I was stretched beyond my normal capacities. I remember several times noting to myself that I could actually feel myself learning. Or perhaps it was because I love the earth and things that grow from it (so many garden anecdotes could fit in here, but won't because writing is unnatural to me lately).
Occasionally information which I learned in that class reappears and makes an important streak across the sky, reminding me of what it means to know things and be educated in practical and practicable things. It's like cooking. Do you know how to cook? The question always baffles me, and a person responding "no" to that question is unfathomable to me sometimes. But I know that there are things which I don't yet (or maybe ever will) know. Anyways.
Today, I was brought back to the Widtsoe Building on BYU campus when I stepped onto a group of fruits lying in the grass. If there is one crucial element to this story, it is this: Nebraska is infiltrated by Squirrels. The concept of piles of fruits or nuts just lying around without a horde of squirrels rummaging through them is unheard of in these parts.  I was weirded out, and, retrospectively, I understand why.

These fruits, and now my boots, smelled acutely and precisely of pungent rancid butter. 

As the smell punched me in the nose, the image of my professor telling me about the scent of rancid butter couldn't be ignored. what was it? I remembered the image of a tree on the screen behind him, and I seemed to remember scribbling something down in my notebook about it. A tree... I prided myself on knowing the trees. My parents were "Master Tree Stewards", and the title was one that I decided I wanted to inherit. I had to know!
And then, I looked closer and remembered the bipedal leaves of the ancient Ginko. Ah yes, the oldest deciduous tree in the world. This old friend of mine. The fruit looks like this:

Sincerely, and with all of the pleading in my nostrils, PLEASE, avoid stepping on these babies. Rancid butter boots are not something that I would wish upon anyone, and as soon as I finish this, I will run to my car and take mine off so that they don't contaminate my car, and I will not wear them for a few weeks. So foul. So. So. So. Foul.

I am thankful for memory and the capacities for remembrance of knowledge. Knowing things is a miracle and a blessing.

Along those lines, I presented this today. It's a for chapter of my thesis.

In semi-related news, if you are looking for something to listen to, and you want to think more about memory and the implications of memory and its erasure from popular culture, you should listen to this. It might make you feel bad, as a warning, but I think it's maybe time for us to start being grown-ups about feeling bad.

I bake my own bread

I haven't bought a loaf of bread in years. The last loaf I bought was in ca 2009, I believe. I stopped buying it because that loaf lasted for over a month and never got moldy or stale.  How do people eat non-food?

So my cute cousin gave me a really good bread recipe once when I went to visit her as a respite from Provolandia. It is my go-to recipe, because I can bake it from start (flour and yeast in respective receptacles) to finish (two golden loaves) in under two hours.

I baked some recently.

It tastes like play-doh.

I cannot get enough of it. Am I disgusting?

(This is NOT the recent culprit, but rather an early example from last year, using the same recipe, which inexplicably got HUGE while baking. Bread is an interesting experiment, as the conditions of the day effect the mood and therefore overall personality of the end product.)

(also, I may have a new crush.)

Done (This one's for Dog)!!

I'm done with a super-massive project I had been working on all semester.
It feels good to finish something that's sort of huge.
It is scary to me that this project is emblematic of my undergraduate career. In a few short weeks, I will be done with that also. Apprehension is huge, and I have no idea how I will fill up my life for 8 months.
 Suggestions? Anyone?

Anyone looking for a live-in nanny or maid?

In other news, my fish Dog died today. I have had him for over a year- since Brandon came up here. I got him because B was lonely in his first semester, and we felt that a fish would help ease the sting of his first time out on his own a bit (we can all remember those scary nights, when you realized that your burning Easy Mac was [soooo much like the paper I just wrote] emblematic of your melting social stamina and general well-being because really, you missed your mom and wanted to just lay down and have someone else worry about the gas bills that are due, and the fact that you are probably malnourished [srsly, Easy Mac!?], can't we?).

(I acknowledge and accept the ramifications of:
1. Run on nature of the last parenthetical sentence.
2. The disgusting-ness of aforementioned. Sorry.)

thanks for the graphic, cfp

Anyways, B found some friends, and then he decided he was unfit to care for Dog. So I got him. Apparently I am no more fit a care-taker for a fish named Dog than he was. I left the country for two months, and miracle-of-miracles, the little tyke survived. In spite of an aerosol nightmare and being fed by roommates twice. Maybe. Dog was a survivor, so hats off to him.

The Great Toilet in The Sky catches us all someday, I guess.