"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." Anais Nin

Posted by: brutallycurious at December 30, 2006 13:52 | link | comments (3)

I just returned from a screening of The Painted Veil. I loved it. It's beautifully shot, moving, heart-wrenching, and superbly acted. I am now  a fan of both Edward Norton and Naomi Watts. Singing Arrow and I used the  passes as a sort of anniversary gift to ourselves. We've been married a year. 

We've changed a lot, but I wouldn't say it's because we got married.  Ever since we first met, we have challenged ourselves and each other, and held on for dear life as we changed.  But it seems accelerated lately and it seems we are both rather different people, even just a year later. I think we are both much more sure of our own strength and know more about who we are and who we want to be. We are both more likely to take responsibility for our own emotions and actions. We are learning to trust in ways we never would have before. Damn it's hard, but it's worth it.

In lighter news, the cats are going stir crazy and driving me nuts in the process. No one would call Georgia "cold" right now, but the cats would and don't like to be outside long. They come right back in and then hiss at each other out of frustration. I'm tempted to lock them both out for a night and see if they calm down.

I have to feed Youma 2 more days and then her mama comes back. I'll be glad to be relieved of that duty. It wasn't hard, but it gets rather depresssing to be charged with the care of a cat  that doesn't trust you.  At least the fish are happy to see me.

The deep issues of life are percolating inside me and refuse to come out. They are a tangled mess at the moment. Maybe next week they will form into words....

Posted by: brutallycurious at December 28, 2006 23:29 | link | comments (2)

This is Youma. As in " you ma good girl". I'm taking care of her for two weeks while my lucky neighbor is in Namibia.
Youma trusts no one. Her main form of communication is growling followed closely by hissing. She hisses while she waits for food, hisses while she sniffs your hand, growls every time you look at her. Poor thing. She was already a little jumpy, but having her human away has really stressed her out.
I've been spending time over here every day for a whole week and she only just now got this close. She was overcome with curiousity and began sniffing my bag.
I am a cat veteran, so I'm pretty comfortable letting her get to know me at her own pace, but I feel for her that no one has really petted her in a week.
I am also feeding the fish, and yesterday I thought I'd lost one. He was upside down but the gills were still moving. Today, no one is floating. Thank god. They all seem chipper and eager to eat.
I bring my laptop and hook into the wireless. This condo is on the 2nd floor, and mine is the next building over on the first floor. I figured I could pick up my own wireless network from here, but no. I can "see" it, but it's too far away to actually tap.
Being an urban neighborhood, there are at least 6 active networks visible at any time, and I can find one that is open.   Wireless networking is a phenomenon that is widespread and common now, and yet it still fascinates me. I don't understand how it works (and don't really want to) but to think that i can access the internet from this little laptop and have no idea how the signal works and from where...it's pretty cool.

There has been a lot going on with me even though what i have been posting lately has been mundane. Two weeks ago I had my surge of creative energy and worked on a collage. Since then I've had another photo shoot and I've had to work on pictures from past shoots. My deadlines seem to all be coming at once, but by Friday all the work will be out the door and I can hang out for christmas.

Posted by: brutallycurious at December 20, 2006 17:33 | link | comments (6)

I'm not fat, I was just baked that way....

I made christmas cookies tonight. It may not sound extraordinary, but it was. Being a celiac, making cookies is a huge deal. I had to mix the flour from my flour cabinet...no, I'm serious. I have a shelf of mystery flours. Sometimes we reach for the premixed blend off the shelf just like you would self-rising flour.  But this recipe called for tapioca, potato and xantham gum (ok, that one's not a flour).  The dough went together well, but when we mixed it Sunday we discovered it had to be very cold to even survive the cut-and-move. So we chilled it and tried again tonight.
It behaved just like sugar cookie dough, though a little delicate, and the cookies tasted great. It was a culinary feat, but also terribly, terribly funny. The oven wasn't quite hot enough, so they spread to amorphous blobs. Good thing they didn't have to look good for anyone. They were simultaneously so good and so ugly, they deserved pictures.So, clockwise from the top, the one with the green spot was a bell. Next was  a snowflake. The one with the heavy sprinkles was a flower. The conjoined cookies at the top are a snowman on the left  (head is on the left with the sprinkles) and a holly leaf  on the right.
Haha. Love it. My cookies have to come with a map.

Posted by: brutallycurious at December 19, 2006 23:01 | link | comments (2)
cooking, celiac

"Always approach your creativity with humility, and your success with grace."

Quincy Jones

Posted by: brutallycurious at December 15, 2006 19:29 | link | comments