Spidercamp

hi, blah blah blah

so the ice cream machine is back to its usual price, but it's worth it

thanks internet for letting me know my blog is all bitched up, i have no idea why, i have asked typepad why vital stuff like rabbits are no longer appearing in the sidebar. if you need (NEEEEEEED) some stupid rabbits or my flickr link, it's all still accessible if you visit a "category" page - scroll down to that part of the sidebar and click on blogs or recipes or shitty movies, damn that list is old, wow.

barack obama, SWOON, just talked for an hour straight on Meet the Press with like one commercial break, SWOON. he was clear-spoken and answered the questions he was asked, FAINT, and made complete sentences with real grammar and stuff, DIE. Meet the Press is now called The Love Boat in my mind because that shit was sensual. PLEASE BE THE PRESIDENT.

in case you're a nerd like me

If you've ever been to my house I'm sure I have fed you 10 pints of homemade ice cream. If I've ever talked to you on the internet I'm sure I have never shut up about the homemade ice cream.

BECAUSE IT IS AWESOME.

The Cuisinart machine which has never failed me and which David Lebovitz recommends for home cooks is currently on sale for $19.99 on the amazons, which is about 60% off. PLEASE BUY ONE and then we can be ice cream nerds together 4ever.

also yesterday my brother totally got dooced

i was sitting at a red light at school-letting-out time, watching a herd of teenage kids waiting for the bus in front of the gas station. a guy in army fatigues finished filling up his car and was about to leave but one of the kids called out to him across the parking lot. i had this moment of dread, thinking maybe it was an insult, some smartass kid wanting to say something rude about the war, but then they were both smiling and walking a little closer towards each other so they didn't have to yell back and forth. i rolled down the car window, it was killing me not to know, but traffic was too loud. all i know is this tall skinny kid and the soldier were of different races, were not so far apart in age, and had some things to say to each other. and at the end, the soldier waved goodbye, and the kid drew himself up and gave the best salute his untrained seventeen-year-old arm could do, which wasn't very good, but the look of surprise which spread across the soldier's face was excellent. of course he returned the salute, and they both stood there like that for a moment in the noise and the exhaust by the side of the road.

--

the post office does passports and i love to watch. applicants are quizzed by the postal clerk on stuff they just finished writing down on a form, which, how is that supposed to catch liars? the clerk makes them raise their right hands and solemnly swear it's all true. the best part is their left hands. the post office does not stock a bible, so yesterday i watched a man swear on his keys, and a woman swear on her mastercard.

--

god bless america, here have some stupid mashups.

General Public vs. Rihanna (Party Ben) - Tender Umbrella

Arrested Developement vs. Beyonce (DJ Peaking) - People Ring the Alarm Everyday

Bob Marley (?i dunno) vs. TLC (synchronoize) - No Scrubs No Cry

bonus - all three of these have stealth beginnings, i.e. you don't know it's anything different from the original for the first 10 seconds or so. i adore this because it makes for fun ipod surprises, plus it infuriates people who don't like fun.

the biscotti manifesto

- don't cry if you didn't get any

- sorry if you get a bag of dust

- sorry if you get a bag of stale dust

- do you like how i used priority boxes, camouflaged them, then sent the packages priority anyway? yeah i'm an idiot

- best dunked in a hot beverage, i recommend coffee though i know some of you are more tea

- pretty ok eaten dry, don't break your teeth on the chocolate ones though

- the chocolate ones are chocolate, the tan ones are cinnamon-almond, the tan ones with specks are cinnamon-almond-cherry

- not to tell you how to eat, but seriously the almond ones are pretty fragile and WILL turn your coffee into mud if dunked for more than a moment

- the ones with broken ends are not pre-nibbled i swear

- i will gladly share recipes, they're easy to make, even the giada delaurantis one that fucking lied to me SO HARD, but i rescued them from sucking because i rule

- i wanted to send you 50, i wanted to send tasty things to everybody i know, this is what i will do when i am a billionare, god you guys are all gonna eat so well

- oh yeah, if you don't like them, don't be afraid to say so (really) - it will be a sad fact, but my feelings won't be hurt, and it's the only way for me to learn what not to send you again. plus i wouldn't bother sending it to people who wouldn't apppreciate the thought alone.

brenda wood, on the changeable weather

"Unfortunately, we've had all this loss of life, and then we've got all this sunshine to enjoy. So it's sort of a mixed blessing."

screw it, i'm renaming this whole thing "weird shit that happened at the post office"

this one guy storms in and wants to see the postmaster, which, i cannot ever stop my brain from supplying "flash." he says his fiancee was assaulted in the parking lot yesterday and he wants to talk to whoever's in charge of security, etc. he says he is tired of all those homeless guys always hanging around outside.

this is of course a complicated issue but i can certainly see where he's coming from; any guy whose woman has been attacked gets to be furious and say whatever he wants. my issue is not with the sentiment, it is with his phrasing. because he did not actually say "homeless guys," or "men," or "shitheads." he said, "turkeys." his woman. got jumped. and the worst he could come up with was "turkeys." dude this is why swearing was invented, go for it!

then a guy comes in, at first i really think this is matt from brooklyn! but it's not, it's some french guy with his kid. the two of them could not have been more mismatched. dad in goatee and scholarly sweater / kid in red hoodie and trackpants.

the kid, who can't be older than 4, leans against the wall, crosses his sneaks, puts his hood up and jams his hands in his pockets. PUTS HIS HOOD UP. inside. and slouches it forward so i can only see the lower third of his face, the sulk. just gangsta as fuck, like any minute now he'll give me the upnod and sell me some weed. i'm 8 times this kid's age and he's got me so beat on coolness.

unlike most ladies i have never been automatically swoony over french, but somehow, from goatee + sweater + very earnestly speaking to his kid at great length, it was pretty all right? so this musical language is tumbling out of him and the kid's just nodding, nodding, so serious, so street.

finally the kid says, "i dunno, i always thought luke skywalker was pretty stealth."

atmosphere - watch out

laura veirs - galaxies

brannon i have a feeling you get this too

I don't know what is wrong with my face but strangers immediately tell me all kinds of things. I know about Eddie at the post office's upcoming cruise to Alaska (prediction: FAAABulous!) and what the nametagless post office lady ordered the last time she went to Red Lobster (fish!). Fabric store Miss Hattie loves oatmeal cream pies, how the FUCK does that even come up in conversation, but it did. Mitch at Trader Joe's has talked me all the way from the register to the exit door, more than once. Sean at Trader Joe's recommends Vermont, should I ever have to choose which New England state to visit, AND HERE'S WHY.

It's usually wonderful and I wouldn't trade it for the world, but I do wonder how many calories I have burned over the course of my life, edging away from people. Last week some tiny old lady in a red hat l i t e r a l l y told me about her ass rash for no reason, like there's ever a good reason.

But yesterday I was gossiped around, and eventually gossiped with, by two black women at the fabric store. One of them kept laughing and shaking her head and saying, "white ladies!" in the way women sometimes say, "men!" and she was looking right at me, like, am I right or what? She was right, white ladies so crazy. Then I saw a very fat policeman directing traffic through insane construction on Piedmont. His whole face was obscured by aviator shades and a massive gray mustache. I thought he was checking his watch but instead, I swear to you he was doing the robot in the middle of the street. I think I live in a charmed world.

she was not killed

Today I came the closest I've probably ever come to hitting a human being with my car. She was in a brown coat. She was leaving the hospital. She had a ponytail. She was walking very quickly toward the street I was flying down. I saw her look the other way, the way that couldn't possibly kill her, and then she disappeared behind the bus stop and I couldn't see whether she was still moving toward the street but I thought, I should swerve. I swerved and saw her in the street, a horrified face reeling back, clutching her bag in the safe U-shaped hollow of my tight detour around her body. I watched her in the rearview; someone pulled her by the elbow back onto the curb.

all pleasure is relief

there are many many many ways for your own body to completely fuck you. i don't like feeling this old.

you can find me in the pub

pub owner: You made that cake?

me: yes.

pub owner: And Alex says you might be willing to make cakes for us?

me: oh, well, yeah, I -

pub owner: YOU'RE HIRED.