A stream of consciousness

Hello, World.

2024? Already? Inconceivable.

A lot of updates and changed since the last time I updated this blog. I'm hoping this is the year I start writing more regularly again. 

As it turned out, I really was "too old for that sholar shi*" and we went ahead and walked away from the academic life. That's one hopefully-not-too-far-in-the-future post. 

We made it back home (literally) and are really, truly living the dream. I mean, as imperfect and angst-ridden still of a dream anyone can hope for in 2024. Some major life changes have given us a quality of life that is infinitely better than what it was a decade ago. Yet I find myself preoccupied and constantly anxious. Time passes too quickly. I need it to slow down.

This past holiday season was unexpectedly melancholy for me, as this time of year has tended to be for the past several years. I was a downright crab fully in my feelings on Christmas Day. Is it because of external factors, or is that just my general countenance now? I think I am wanting the holidays to feel like it did when I was younger, but it just doesn't. And it can't. Everyone's older. The world is different.  I'll explore that at some point. I think I just need to set different expectations for future years. Not worse or better. Just changed.

These past couple of years has taken us off the beaten path, through many challenges, unexpected and exciting turns, and, ultimately, back home. I have no doubt that this next chapter will bring a lot of new adventures, and I'm looking forward to documenting it here.

Home projects, gardening, cooking, animals, nature, music, learning, travels, friends, family.

There's a lot to remember and celebrate. Happy New Year.

Goodbye to our little BB.

It's no secret that Schmoobs and I were obsessed with our little forever puppy. From the moment she barreled into our lives as a tiny little ball of fluff with a giant goofy personality thirteen years ago and every day we were so lucky to have had with BB since, our home (wherever that may have been at the time) was filled with laughs and routines and small passing joyful moments that always included her.

As she grew into her sunset years, the shadow of the inevitable grew longer and longer, no matter how hard I tried to stay in blissful denial. We noticed, especially in the last couple of years, that she was starting to slow down. Her playful barks were less ferocious and we heard them less frequently. Our walks would lean more on the side of slow, peaceful meanderings through our neighborhood. But, always, she would still show some sparks of her younger self, from short bursts of energy on the sidewalks outside or with an old toy that had survived many previous bouts of catchaway. 

Shortly after the new year, we found out BB had inoperable cancer. She had been having trouble keeping food and water down so we brought her in for a check up. The doctor found a mass in her belly. Although it was slow growing, it was highly vascular, attached to several other organs, and was obstructing her stomach, making it difficult to hold in more than small amounts of food and water at a time. She wasn't feeling or acting sick otherwise, just regurgitating regularly. 

Through some obsessive observation and situational analysis, I realized that a routine of spaced out smaller meals and separated water times seemed to work better for her and helped keep her from getting sick. This was great, but after some time, the smaller food quantities was causing her to lose weight, so I began cooking her meals that had as much high protein, high calorie, quality fat, and nutritious foods as I could research online and find. A normal meal for her became beef or lamb, sweet potatoes, zucchini, broccoli, carrots, oatmeal or rice and quinoa, pumpkin puree, peanut butter, sardines, blueberries, maybe some organ meats (she loved those gizzies), and sometimes some cottage cheese. I even went to so far as to make her "charpoocherie" boards that she absolutely loved. Okay, maybe I loved them and she just gladly gobbled it up.

I'm sure to outside observers, all of these homecooked meals were the actions of a certifiable nut job, but I actually enjoyed our little mealtime routines. She really started doing quite well and it was nice to feel like I was caring for her in some tangible way. After a few weeks, it even started to seem like her body had somehow adjusted to the tumor, and she started being able to eat larger and larger meals again, as long as we always controlled the amount of water she drank, and was maintaining a healthy weight. It was a new routine, and we were doing great with it. 

A few weeks ago, however, we noticed that she had developed this weird permanent tilt in her head. It was the end of the week, I remember. Nothing major, but it was noticeable. At first, it was almost charming, the permanent head tilt, and Schmoobs even gave her the nickname "Eileen" ("I lean," get it?) for a laugh. We figured we would just watch her over the weekend. By Monday, the head tilt had gotten worse and she was starting to act more confused and disoriented. We brought her in to her vet, afraid that she had had a stroke, but was told it was likely canine vestibular syndrome—an inner ear imbalance that affects a lot of older dogs—and probably not related to her cancer, especially since she had been doing so well for some time by that point. She was prescribed a regimen of prednisone and we had hopes that it would clear up in a few days, as is normal with the syndrome, with a follow up appointment scheduled in a couple of weeks.

A week into the prednisone, her condition hadn't improved. Actually, she seemed to be getting worse. Her head tilting was fairly extreme at this point, she seemed more and more disoriented and confused, she was wobbly on her legs, and we began having to carry her in and out of the house to go to the bathroom, and up and down from our bed to make sure she didn't stumble over and hurt herself. All this time, she was still sweet BB. Still had a very healthy appetite. Still sassy and loving in her old lady way. 

Like a rolling stone.

Today is my last day at my current position at my current institution.

On Sunday, Schmoobles and I will load up what few necessities I think I will need for our temporary (read: tiny ass) studio apartment and head off together to the new city. On Tuesday, I will begin my new position at my new institution.

I don't know what traumatic event happened to me in my childhood* that makes saying goodbyes very emotional. As much as I am looking forward to new settings, a new institution, and new adventures, if someone I am even marginally fond of says a personal individual goodbye to me I will get verklempt AF. I really need to get better at thinking of all the asshole douchebags that also occupy this space that I will be very happy to leave behind so that I don't get all weepy and annoying.
#remembertheaholes


* MAYBE IT HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH MOVING HALFWAY ACROSS THE WORLD TO ANOTHER HEMISPHERE AT AGE SEVEN AND THEN MOVING ACROSS THE COUNTRY SPONTANEOUSLY AND LEAVING MY ENTIRE FAMILY AFTER COLLEGE AND THEN SPENDING MY TWENTIES AND EARLY THIRTIES MOVING TO FOUR DIFFERENT STATES WHO KNOWS JUST A GUESS. It could also be the final scene of The Little Mermaid where Ariel is saying goodbye to King Triton before she joins her non-fish dreamboat Prince Eric that I have never gotten over since 1989.

Make the Pulitzer Great Again!

Deplorable! This is the bigliest scandal to rock the classical music world since we heard about that opera conductor being a bad hombre...and then allowed him to have a celebrated career for decades. The Deep State has infiltrated the Pulitzer Board and awarded the prize for Music to a Kendrick Lamar. When the “urban” music scene sends its people, they’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rappers.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I have lots of friends who are (whispered) rappers. I love (whispered) rappers. They’re fine people! It’s just that rap isn’t art, okay? Art is beautiful. Art is elite. Art doesn’t have curse words!

Russia, are you listening? I hope you’re able to find the missing Pulitzer votes. Don’t listen to the fake news mainstream media. And don’t even get me started on the failing Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times!

Look, I’m not a rap-ist. I just want us to go back to the good old days of the Pulitzer, when prizes were given to hyper-intellectual art pieces whose framework comes from centuries-long Western traditions that definitely don't intentionally exclude specific genres based on outdated paradigms. 

Or at least give it to a piece of music that most Americans don't even like.

I mean, DAMN.

How To: Not Be An Asshole—A 12-Step Program!

Step 1. Give the courtesy wave.

Okay, this is the first step, so we need to start off with a soft lob. I don't want anyone straining any muscles. (Did you know the heart is a muscle? Anyway.) When you are driving down a narrow street and a car approaching you pulls over to allow you to pass, give them a little courtesy wave, will you? Please notice that I'm not suggesting you actually be the one to pull over and acquiesce to the other driver. (That's, like, full Step Thirteen Asshole-Sober level behavior.) Just express a quick acknowledgment and show some momentary gratitude for their lack of assholery. You don't even have to do a full wave. Do that thing where you continue gripping your steering wheel but raise three, maybe four fingers from their curved position to, like, slightly less curved and almost straight. Maybe even throw in a nearly imperceptible head nod. You know what the other person will think? "Huh, that was nice. They're definitely probably not an asshole."

(Bro tip: Also give a courtesy wave behind you when somebody lets you merge or turn into their lane. That's super non-asshole behavior right there.)

Step 2. Smile at a stranger on the sidewalk.

Alright. At this point, you should be fairly comfortable with the feeling of acknowledging a complete stranger with a minimally positive gesture. It's time to take it to the next level. Try to catch a person's eye as you pass them on the sidewalk and give them a small smile. Don't be, like, creepy. Give a quick look in their direction; if they reciprocate and you happen to make eye contact, follow through with the smile equivalent of, "Hey." not "Haaaaayyyyyy." Do you know why this is good? Because it allows you to give that other person acknowledgment that they freaking exist. Also, people used to do this sort of thing all the time Before Steve Jobs. And honestly? You will look like a self-confident badass because nobody does this anymore.

Step 3. Do not block an intersection.

I know. You're busy. You have places to be. Here's the thing: SO DOES EVERYBODY ELSE. But even more importantly: Do you know what happens when you nudge yourself in there to catch the tail of that yellow light and end up in the middle of the intersection? You get to your destination roughly twenty seconds earlier than if you had just goddamn waited AND you get to sit there—yep, like an asshole—while everybody throws their rightfully venomous angry eyeballs at you. Just don't do it, okay? As a bonus, you get a few extra seconds to chill in your car at a stop light and do some Kegels or something.

I Made This! Celebratory Multicultural Ambiguously Ethnic Tacos Edition.

Today, Schmoobs finally came home after spending the near entirety of June traveling to and fro, hither and thither, participating in a multitude of musicky symposiums and workshops and such. The good news is that we have had plenty of experience dealing with long summertime stretches apart (read: Nerd Corps and summer festivals), but it's still always a nice return to banal normalcy when he comes home. Fast forward to two days later when he has an errant sock or something on the living room floor and I'll be ready to send him away again. Hahaha. (I KID.)

Also, while I was playing Miss Independent for the past month, I have been trying really (really really) hard to maintain a somewhat healthy, disciplined, and responsible lifestyle, in the way of not buying convenient and easy fast food. And since I am completely incapable of cooking meals for only one or two people, I usually ended up cooking one meal that yielded enough to last me an entire week. Which is fantastic in theory, given my aforementioned goals. But no matter how delicious a home cooked meal is, there are only so many straight days of eating the same thing that you can take before your taste buds begin waging protests. Long story short, I made this tasty spaghetti dish at the beginning of this past week. It had chicken, and marinara sauce, and watercress (healthy super food!), and vegan cheese (blergh). It also yielded about twenty servings. I was pretty over it by Wednesday. And really over it by Thursday. But I pushed through like a champion and ate that goddamn final serving for dinner on Friday and dreamt that night of the Trader Joe's cabernet beef pot roast thawing in the refrigerator just waiting to be turned into a New Freaking Meal At Last the next day, just in time for Schmoobins to come home!

So here's what I did:

Dog Vlog!

Yes, my dog has a vlog. It is the twenty-first century.

I Made This! Hipster Toad-in-the-Hole edition.

I present to you a breakfast specially curated for Instagram if ever there was one: Hipster Toad in the Hole. This toad carries organic beard wax in his ironic fanny pack and brings his own French press out to brunch. Rye sourdough pumpkin seed bread, two eggs, butter, and avocado.

Recipe:

1. Go to Costco and buy this amazing looking and tasting rye sourdough harvest bread with pumpkin and other seeds, at a very reasonable price. Do not tell anyone that it is from Costco because it can totally pass as being from a local organic bakery. Hipstergrammers prefer local organic things over Costcto things. Damnit, I already messed up on the first step of this recipe. Oh well.

2. Slice off as many slices of this Secret Costco Bread as people you are feeding. On this morning, it was just one (me.) as Schmoobles has been away on work trips for pretty much the entire month. HEY WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT EMOTIONAL EATING? Oh I did. Then carve out a hole in the middle of the bread slice. Large enough to hold the number of eggs you envision cooking in there. (I did two. #emotionaleating) You can eat the bread scraps, or, do what I did, which is head outside to your backyard wearing only an oversized t-shirt, and toss the bread scraps onto your lawn while singing Mary Poppins tunes while your neighbors call 911.

3. In a large pan (preferably copper because copper cookware is freaking beautiful and if you're not cooking for Instagram, who even are you cooking for I don't get it), melt some butter. Jesus, we're not on a diet here. Put more butter in there. Make sure your pan is on medium or medium-high.

4. Place your Secret Costco Bread Slice in the pan and allow the butter to work its magical sexiness on that toast. Leave them to do their business for, what, like a minute? Two? I don't know. Just don't burn it like I came about ten seconds away from doing. But when one side is golden and toasted and buttery, flip it over and do the same on the other side.

5. BUT immediately after you flip it over, quickly grab your butter and put some more inside the Secret Costco Bread Slice hole. Don't be scared. You need to make sure there is plenty of butter in the pan in preparation of the eggs.

"Be not afraid. I come before you always. Come, follow me, and I will give you rest." - The butter singing gently to your eggs, probably (Is this joke sacrilegious? Do I have to go to confession now?)

6. Crack your eggs gently into the buttered Secret Costco Bread slice hole. Depending on how hot your pan is and how much butter you put in there, the length of time it will take to cook your egg whites will vary. If you are getting impatient and are worried that the bottom of your toast and eggs may burn before the eggs fully set to your liking, you can always put a lid on the pan. Just know that this will facilitate more cooking through of the egg yolks, and you may not get as Instagram-worthy of an egg action shot.

7. While you are waiting for the eggs to cook, you can go ahead and slice half an avocado. Again, make sure it is organic. Avocados don't even show up on Instagram unless they are organic. But not local, unless you live in California or a south American country. I mean, what even is a Kentucky avocado, or a Michigan avocado? Crap, that's what.

8. When everything is ready, plate your Hipster Toad in the Hole on your favorite social media-worthy serving dish (I prefer plain white dishware myself, so as to not distract from your Instamasterpiece). Arrange the avocado slices on top in an aesthetically-pleasing manner, being careful not to completely cover the eggy center. After all, you want everyone to know that this is not just some stupid ordinary boring old avocado toast. Sprinkle on top with some type of pretentious salt: Himalayan pink? Volcanic black? At the very least, make sure it's not granulated table salt *shudder*. Also add some freshly ground black pepper. And then some red chili flakes. Not necessarily because you are fond of chili flakes, but because it looks good. 

9. Position your plate casually next to a carefully-chosen ironic coffee mug, find the best natural light in your kitchen (or, hell, go outside to snap your photo), and set the world ablaze with your Instagramtastic meal. 

10. Enjoy your delicious Hipster Toad in the Hole. (But never forget that eating your dish is only secondary to posting a photo of it on social media.)

But what if I'm a little stubborn and a little nutty?

So I started this other other blog a while ago. Again, I kind of got distracted by life and forgot to write in it. Whoops. But now I'm kind of getting the blogging itch again, and can't decide whether I want to forge ahead with Stubborn Tomato or Acadaemia Nut. Well, I mean, seeing as how I'm writing this new post here, I guess I've decided to go along with Acadaemia Nut, mainly because it has more already-existing posts.

It's been a Q.U.I.E.T. summer. My office desk job is in an arts center on a University campus, so, while there is still the occasional event that takes place during the summer months, 99.9% of the time I can be found sitting at my desk, propping my eyelids open with toothpicks, browsing the internet, occasionally reading about sixteenth-century Spanish mystics, engaging in stressful and frustrating political discussions with Bossman, refreshing all my social media accounts every ten seconds, daydreaming about what I am going to cook and eat that evening, and generally feeling guilty about not spending more time dissertating. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Anyway. This week our arts center is hosting the big State Pageant, and on the schedule for today are talent rehearsals in preparation for the first official evening of competition tonight. The best part is that my office is separated from the main concert stage, so Bossman and I are being treated to a wonderfully eclectic office soundtrack today:

Pageant contestant: *general caterwauling*
Bossman: "Oof. Terrible."
Me: "I don't even recognize what that song was."
Bossman: "Nobody would."

Hahaha.

I may spend a portion of my day transferring some old posts from Stubborn Tomato on over here. And maybe some past recipe/cooking posts that I've been wanting to blog. Anything to get the sounds of Aretha Franklin and Adele songs being sung a semitone flat over a canned orchestral track out of my head.

Update: One of the pageant contestants just wandered into the office hallway and started warming up her Smooth-Criminal-on-violin routine. Bossman immediately banished her. Hahaha.

Stating the obvious.

Hey, you know what's way better than peeing every two minutes and suffering from sizzling ladybits? NOT peeing every two minutes and having totally normal non-sizzling ladybits.

Hooray for antibiotics!

If my ladyparts could just stop being a dick already, that'd be GREEEAAAT.

What would also be great, is if the website you are reading AT WORK to learn about treatments for your freaking annoying bladder infection didn't look like this:

Leap Day 2016

Um, hi.

Just popping in to say that I'm still here. The last month was a crazy one. In some good ways, in some bad ways. But crazy. And I'm so excited that tomorrow is that start of a new one.

Man, there is so much to catch up on in this blog. 

It's seriously only Tuesday?

Here's the thing about working in the office of your school's director of graduate studies ("Office Job 1"): You develop a level of collegiality and familiarity with this Very Important Person in your doctoral program that not many other graduate students attain. However, this also means that, if you screw up -- like, say, completely miss the registration deadline for your dissertation residency course and run the risk of losing your full-time student status -- and have to go to said Very Important Person for help, the groveling intrinsically comes with an added bit of personal shame and embarrassment. Luckily, I am exceptionally good at simultaneously accepting blame and groveling for mercy. It's one of my many charms. Honestly, I find that the combination of ownership, proaction, and a sprinkling of humor can get you out of almost any bind. And doubly luckily, I was not the only graduate student in my program to make the same mistake, so I was able to pull him down along with me to bask in the combined groveling.

"Dear Dr. ---,

Please remember, first, that Scot and I are two of the best -- Musicology students {happy face emoticon}.
But our conversation reminded me to check, and I had not registered for MUS 767 this semester! Neither had Scot, it turns out. But, do not fret! I have already spoken to the Registrar's Office, and they will register us for the 'course' with your signature on this form. Thank you!

Mea culpa

Mea culpa

Mea culpa"

Long story short, our director of graduate studies signed our Late Add forms, I was able to register for the course two weeks (oops) after the deadline, and all's well that end's well. I actually saw him later that afternoon and he greeted me with "Well, if it isn't one of our best Musicology students...!" Haha.

By the way, I'm too tired to blahg about it right now, but someday I will write an angry post about this ridiculous dissertation residency "course" and the also ridiculous fee (over A THOUSAND DOLLARS) that we are required to pay EVERY SINGLE SEMESTER. So, basically, our funding support is cut off at the same exact time that the University requires us to pay this fee to take a "course" that basically entails you trying to research and write a dissertation while concurrently having to work a day job (or two or three) in order to live and eat and pay this stupid bogus course fee. Ugh. Acadaemia win. Hency, my ever ongoing quest to obtain a full-time job on campus so that I waive that freaking bane of my existence fee.

Anyway.

The other day, I purchased a new squeaky toy for BB. 1) It's a freaking turtle with an opening in its belly where you stuff squeaky turtle eggs inside. And 2) I obviously couldn't resist. Come on. I also realized that I could also stuff its belly with BB's absolute favorite most treasured toy, which is her corduroy Santa bear squeaky head that has long since been disembodied from its tennis ball body. So now it looks like the turtle is in the midst of a c-section with this disembodied bear head. Awesome! 

Oh, and we decided to have just a few people over for Superb Owl Sunday this past weekend. Professor Schmoobles had just returned from a professional state conference the day before, so we weren't sure if we even wanted to do anything. But, you know. An excuse to have chicken wings and such. And since we are who we are, we also did shrimp cocktail and oysters. Oh, us.

Guess who's stomach felt like a vat of fiery hot bile later that night and into the next day? Ugh, even looking at that picture of spicy fried wings makes my stomach turn. Was it worth it? DUH. But spicy wings and I probably need to take a little break. 

Not.

My favorite is when you don't realize that you have claimed 3 allowances on your employer's W-4 and so that when you file your tax return on your two measly $10/hr part time student jobs, you end up owing money.

SERENITY NOW!!!

Had myself a little sacrifical purge action last night.

Epiphany: Part Two.

I want to be self-employed. And I want to make things.

Commentariat of the mundane: a photo dump!

"Gee, I love going back and forth between the frozen windy weather outside and overly heated indoors during the winter!" -- nobody with extremely sensitive skin and eczema ever

Here, I took a selfie:

Who needs face skin, anyway?

Sometimes, I look in the mirror to check on the whole face situation when I have these extreme dry skin spells and it looks like a patch of my skin has dried donut glaze on it. Which, considering I scarfed down a half dozen glazed donut holes in my car this morning after I parked because I had two minutes before my 8am appointment, is actually entirely possible. 

Anyway, not much terribly exciting news on the front line, or even the back line. I achieved decent office time dissertation progress last week, which is what I am going to assume caused the acute right wrist pain that I am currently suffering from. You know what are daily actions that you totally take for granted until you decide to develop a mystery wrist injury on your dominant hand? Opening doors, turning the steering wheel, and...um...cleaning yourself after a visit to the Little Disgruntled Doctoral Student's Room. Anyway. Dissertating is a dangerous business, especially when trying to do it while working an office job! I'll probably have to start using one of those ergonomic mouse/keyboard wrist cushion things that old people or nerds use.

In any case, lots of mundane things have happened in the last couple of weeks. I took pictures (doy):

Snow Day check-in!

Today's Bro Award goes to our postman, who just delivered our mail in this arctic tundra. I think we could have waited for the one envelope of Costco coupons, but the effort was appreciated nonetheless.

Honorable mention goes to the guy who just BICYCLED past our house on the sidewalk while pulling his little kid behind on a sled. That's Snow Day-ing and adulting right. Ah well, back to my fireside blanket burrito.

Epiphany.

I want to be self employed.

When in Acadaemia...

When a student identifies a piece by Machaut as chant:

via GIPHY