This year is wrapped up, so tear it open and enjoy

Stole this idea from a friend's LJ...here are selections from posts throughout this year, month by month, a Best of The Ki Two Life, if you will, for 2008. "Best of" is mostly humorous, with a few points of relevance and life happenings thrown in for variety and substance. Resolutions to come soon!

January
"I'm not drunk, I'm just affected by the alcohol."

-"Don't ever lower your standards."
-"Okay."
-"What are your standards, anyway?"
-"What do you mean? On what? I could write a book on them--"
-"Everything!"
-"I don't know about everything, but I think I'll know when I see the person. It'll be like, okay, you're the one."

February
One part comedy, one part creepy, three hundred parts bad rectangle drawing.

Silly me for thinking I'd actually get to make out with someone on the day that only comes once every four years (tomorrow, Feb. 29th). Sadly, that's impossible now. Here's hoping for 2012.

March
I'm likely leaving for the west coast by August, and I don't know why I should bother getting attached to someone before then. That being said, I'd love to have someone in my life for some PG-13 physical enjoyment, without the emotional baggage.

[20:30] Mike (from SC, not my boy): haha how don’t you have a guy with that flexibility haha
[20:30] Ki Two: I often wonder that myself :)
[20:31] Ki Two: I'm too damn picky
[20:31] Ki Two: That's all :P
[20:31] Mike: You could walk up to someone and go, look what i can do
[20:31] Mike: and bam, boyfriend

"Just put the [unattractive guy] behind you. It feels the same, and then you get to look at the guy [you do find attractive]."
-Brandon, on the logistics of a MMF threesome with only one attractive male

April
WTF Monday: There could have been a porno in my kitchen this morning

When Peach ate it, I waited for Link to spawn, then started yelling at the screen as I fought. "Come on Linky Linky!" I yelled. "Something cold to...." as I jumped to deliver what I hoped would be the fatal blow, "DRINKYYYYYYYY!" I struck. Tabuu flickered and dematerialized.

May
"DID DAD LOCK YOU OUT AGAIN!!!!???"

"You talked about hating the law, and how you wanted to run around screaming." -Mike

Me: Do you have milk?
Paul: Yeah, I just bought some today. I got 1%. That's what you drink, right?
Me: No, but it'll seem better to me since Michael drinks 2% and that's all I've had for two days.
Paul: Oh wow.
Me: Yeah, it's not bad really. I'm kind of used to it.
Paul: Man, you must really like him.

June
"I don't ask for much in life, just a trash can to throw up in while sitting down."

July
My beautiful kitty lived to be about 18 and a half years old.

The bottoms of my feet are black. I didn't shower last night. I haven't brushed my teeth since this morning. And despite all this dirtiness, I feel pretty awesome. Because today I signed a lease for an apartment.

August
If you have never sheared one portion of frozen meat from another portion using physical strength, you have not lived.

I told my dad that I told Mike they really shouldn't drive at night because it's dangerous. His response? He told me don't be a pain about it.

September
Suffice to say that giving a cat an enema is quite an experience

Mike: "Welcome to Part One of We're Going to do a Fuckton of Dishes."

October

Because we snack in style, bitches

November
Mike: "my right nipple is cold 'cause you drooled on it"

6. Without scalding yourself, spilling the water, or making everything everywhere explode, add the hot water to the dry-fried rice.


WTF PAUL YOU HAVEN'T WRITTEN ANYTHING IN A WEEK. GET IT TOGETHER DUDE.

"There were just SO many people, I just couldn't get around them! So many people with THEIR BIG BUBBLE BUTTS."

December
I crashed my left bike handlebar into a garbage bin today.

We tried to come up with something clever, but we couldn't. Thanks for putting up with our crappy uncreative card. Actually, this goes along great with the holiday season, doesn't it? Seasons greetings from Kiki, Mike, Ellie, and Ceri, from California, where our weather may be weird, but it's better than yours.

______

And there you have it, the highlights of 2008 on The Ki Two Life. Happy New Year!

It was a RockBand night

Driving home at 2:00 in the morning after leaving Mike and Quinn in the same apartment felt strangely familiar.

I think we've planned out how to see family/friends the most/even-est with the smallest amount of driving.

But it's still a lot of driving.

We used the phrase "only a three hour drive" today because once you've driven 800 miles in a day, anything under 400 miles seems pretty easy. Now that I think about it, I've also driven over 1000 miles in a day, but I only did about 15% of the driving. Totally not the same as ~50% of 800 miles in a day. Whew.

Christmas Eve/Day will be the first days Mike and I have spent apart since he arrived in Berkeley in August. It's...something. I'm not sure what it is. A little sad, but it's better this way, this year at least. I look forward to the time when we'll become of the mindset that traveling together, while perhaps less efficient (for parent/family time per person), is just the way it'll be.

Getting chilly...going to bed. Goodnight!

Ideas wanted, also heat

I need suggestions for New Year's Resolutions. I love these things even if I don't end up sticking to them. I really try, at least for most of them (attending church this year = epic fail), and I like thinking of ways to better myself.

So, better me. Give me ideas. I'm about to zonk out and it is SO FRICKIN' COLD IN THIS HOUSE. Man I'm cold. Man. I'mma wear socks to bed tonight. I might even wear all kinds of clothes to bed tonight. *shivers*

p.s. Got my first Christmas present Sunday night from Mike. It's a claddagh ring, and I absolutely love it.

A need for privacy, sometimes

Started up a LiveJournal account. A real one. None of this OpenID stuff. I tried to be cool without getting a real account and now it's bugging me and I'd like the option to write private things.

Username: kitwolife
Journal page: http://kitwolife.livejournal.com

Friend me if you'd like to read my stuff if/when I post "friends only" stuff, or if you know I read your LJ, because I'm going to kill off my OpenID account profile/friends page asap. I encourage Blogger users to just friend me with OpenID instead of creating a new account, unless you want the privacy, too. Whatever you like. I'm game.

How it'll work:
Whenever I friends-post on LJ, I'll link to it on here, so you don't need to check it all the time. Then you can just click the link here and read the post there. Easy, huh?

It's in the bag

Went shopping today.

Saw a big billboard that had bad English and wanted to take a picture but my batteries were dead. It said something like: "Be not ashamed for thou love of shoes." Took me a second but I finally realized that "thou" should have been "thy" or "thine" (?).

{If you care about my pair}
I kind of want to bitch about the lack of A-cup hot outfits at Victoria's Secret, but I got measured again today and I'm back to a 34B. Not sure how that happened, but cool. She even said I was on the high end of B (insane, but whatever), and to watch out for snug fits, or something like that. I was kind of blindsided by it because I was afraid I'd lost weight both overall and in my chest and was about to be doomed to 34A land where there are no bras or hot outfits anywhere.

But it all worked out, surprisingly. It's good to be back in a common size. I'd been 36A-ing up the place for too long. Ha. They're probably the same, anyway.

{Procrastination}
Holiday cards will likely be late. I'm sorry. The thought still counts.

You should look good in pictures

Maybe you think your forehead's huge, or maybe your back and neck muscles just spasm whenever there's a camera around, but whatever the reason, one day you'll realize you're one of those people who takes pictures with their head tilted way too far back to be flattering, and you've been giving the world numerous views up your nostrils, and accentuating your nose and chin in general, and that day will be grand because you'll know that it hasn't really cost you anything except a slightly negative photogenic reputation, and that can be fixed with a hearty dose of narcissism and some patience in front of a camera for a hundred or so practice shots.

About the previous sentence: This isn't really to anyone, I just thought of it and had to write it. But if you do this, well, maybe this helped you figure that out.

Completely unrelated, but pretty:


Sunlit Tree by ~MichaelVerge on deviantART

A break of sorts

I have to grade exams all day today, but I'm done with classes this semester, finally. If I can just make a B in the last class I took, I think it'll all be okay.

I took Mike out for a steak dinner last night (Let's go Outback tonight...). It was tasty, but my stomach definitely knows the difference between homemade food and restaurant food. Bleh.

Our cat Ellie is such a bitch.

Still haven't done holiday cards yet. Bad us. I'm going shopping this evening, so I think I'll reserve tomorrow for some card-writing and addressing. Woo!

Tasty, tasty murder

Not sure if it's even legal in California, or if we could afford a big enough plot of land, but for a while now Mike and I have been talking about getting a goat if/when we move somewhere with our own backyard. It's a fun idea in theory, but I know there would be a lot of work associated with it. Not even sure if I like goat's milk, but it'd be neat to try, and maybe we could make cheese from it.

We also talked about getting a hen, which would be awesome because fuck yeah free eggs, and I'd know that the hen was fed well and loved instead of cramped in a cage with half a beak.

Does it seem weird to y'all that I eat meat even though I'm all liberal and hippie-ish? Sometimes I think eating meat doesn't jive with who I am and/or who I want to be, at least meat like poultry, pork, and beef, that walks around and can be pet. Fish? Eh...I bet they feel pain and have social lives but I like to think they are beheaded pretty early in the fishing cycle.

As for seafood, I don't eat lobster, but I bet they throw crabs into the boiling water alive in the same way, and MAN I love crab meat. Of course, I love a good medium rare steak or chicken breast, too. What's a girl to do?

It's a blow to my ego, but I just can't handle giving up all kinds of meat all the time. It's good to have protein and iron and other stuff that's in meat, even though I know I can get the same sort of nutrients from plants or other foods. But when we talked about having a hen, I said it'd be hard to go pet the hen and take an egg from it, and then later have chicken for dinner. Like it's okay if I don't have to look in the eyes of the animal I'm eating. *sigh*

So here's what I'm thinking for now, at least...I'd like to start having meat-free days during the week, maybe even just once per week. In addition, I'd like to make a seafood dish, like fish or shrimp or even imitation crab meat (also yummy, which shows what a horrible palate I have). Then it'd only be five days a week I'd be eating meat, instead of the usual six or seven that I do now. I really like spaghetti, and we already have meatless dinners with a hearty tomato/onion/mushroom sauce. And that's definitely filling and tasty, and aside from any of those additives (of which there are few), is likely murder-free. It's a good feeling.

Do you know any good meatless meals to have? Eggplant is not a big thrill for me. But I like eggs, and I'm certainly not going vegan anytime soon (milk is waaayyy too awesome). So if you know of anything, please comment. I'd love to try some new, recommended meatless meals sometime soon.

2008 Round Up

from P4tr1x

What have I learned this year?

-It's good to have a plan, and it's good to deviate from it
-Putting "date somebody awesome" on your New Year's Resolution is the most effective way I've found to accomplish that goal
-It's easier to love your parents, and even for your parents to love you, if you're far apart
-Driving across the country, while interesting, is best done sparingly
-The eastern half of Oklahoma has the shittiest roads I've ever driven
-Cooking for yourself con: Having to buy your own groceries
-Cooking for yourself pro: Eating whatever you want, all the time
-Berkeley is weird and expensive and fun
-Keeping hope alive is difficult, but worth the effort
-If you aren't making yourself happy, then: Life - You're doing it wrong.


Top 5 things that sucked about 2008:
5. High anxiety/worry while apartment hunting, and in general
4. Cat illness/GI problems
3. Leaving AL friends and being out of driving range of SC
2. Family medical issues
1. Obie dying

Top 5 things that ruled about 2008:
5. Super Smash Bros. Brawl: This game will live forever.
4. Getting into Berkeley's chemistry grad program
3. Figuring out a lot about myself and how I want to live
2. Crashing into independence and becoming an adult. I'm not good at it yet, but I like it so far.
1. Going from "single and looking" to "taken, committed, and cohabiting" in about four months.

Honorable mentions for "ruled":
-Stopped taking birth control pills in March (one of my best decisions ever)
-The Gators' football season, yea!
-Obama '08
-All the friends I've made since moving to CA (kind of part of #4)
-Having a home (with cats!) / Nesting / Being domestic

So what have you learned? What sucked/ruled in 2008 for you? Leave a link to your post if you write one like this! ^_^

On the road to beefy, again

I went to the gym today for the first time since I got here and for the first time since sometime in April. It's been way, way, WAY too long and I feel really good right now knowing that I took the first step towards getting back on track for fitness. Man, that was cheesy but I don't care because

We Made Curry Chicken

And it was delicious. We had today, I made some extra sauce to put on it and it was even more delicious because I added more soy sauce, curry, and sugar, than I did yesterday (per total volume of sauce), and the extra tang/sweet/spicy flavors really paid off. I'd never made curry chicken before but the internet told me that if I just had the right ingredients, I could basically throw it all in a sauce pan (or wok, even better, see below) and heat, taste, and season it until it was done.


Ingredients: Chicken, carrots, potatoes, onions. Sauce: Milk + half and half base, added sugar, curry, soy sauce, and a little oil. Might try adding pineapple next time.

Important note: I might want more Wii games in the future. If you know things about Wii games and/or about me and my videogame tastes, I want your recommendations! Excluded from your recommendations are: World of Goo and Animal Crossing : City Folk, because we're almost certainly getting those sometime soon. Congrats, Paul. You win. I'll try your real-time talking-animal life-simulation alter-universe game. And I might even send you silly Wii speak messages, too. ^_^

Related note: I want to get another Wiimote and am thinking about getting Wii Play for the heck of it since it comes with a controller. Are there other games that come with Wiimotes? I haven't found any yet, but if you know of ones, tell me!

Sometime soon I'll start talking about resolutions and wrapping up this year and holy cow this year went by so quickly. Seriously. It feels like it's been three years since I had my second knee surgery (the much more minor cartilage one). And it's been a year and two weeks. Crazy! I guess that's what happens when I go to grad school in two different places, travel a good bit, move, officially become independent, and play so much Brawl I'm surprised my eyes haven't fallen out yet. I'm getting a little carried away...goodnight!

Overcoming hatred

{As personal as it gets}
I get a richer cathartic experience out of publicizing my own faults and reparations than I do when I keep them inside or even record them privately.

Last year some stuff happened, and because someone had neither the guts to be honest, or the foresight that I might have the maturity to deal with a complex, and somewhat awkward, social situation, I was consistently lied to and ultimately caught in the middle of a very unpleasant, personally affecting situation.

I'm a forgiving person, in general, but I found it very difficult to forgive Fernando* because, to my knowledge, he didn't think he'd done anything wrong, and I don't believe he was sorry for the things he did and said. I fought with myself for a while about that, trying to forgive him, trying to justify why I should forgive him. I asked a lot of people what they would do in a similar, hypothetical situation, and I didn't get any good answers about why or how I could go about forgiving that rat bastard.

See, there it is. The hate. It's there. I just couldn't forgive him. I just fucking hate him more than I have ever hated anyone. He has hurt me more than anyone has ever hurt me, which seems to match that he'd be the person I hate the most. I also fear him. He's got a lot going for him.

I couldn't forgive him, so I decided to do the next best thing, which was eliminate all contact with him. This wasn't difficult since our last interaction ended with him saying something about how that was going to be the last time I'd hear from him, which was damn fine because...well, that should be obvious by now.

There was a short period of time in which I thought contacting him might be beneficial, but then I felt selfish for wanting closure, and decided it would be best to leave things alone. I am also afraid of losing control of myself. I've never wanted to inflict violence on someone so much as I do towards him. That's a scary thing to type.

The not-contacting has been decent, I suppose, but I really dislike having the thorn of hatred buried somewhere in me. It's heavy and painful and annoying. It's not like me. I'm a happy, gentle, forgiving person, and it doesn't jive with me to have an annoying cloud of hate-thoughts swirling, even if I only think of him a few times in a year.

That did feel good, though, to forget about it for a while. Time does help heal in that regard, I've found. And now when I'm examining the wound, or scar, or some middle stage between the two, I can do so without nervous hands or hasty decisions, and I can do so with confidence that I know what's best for myself now.

This likely won't sound like much, but today I unblocked him on Facebook. I certainly don't want to be his friend, and I think it's a step in the right direction. I'm not in the must-avoid/pretend-he-doesn't-exist phase any longer, and I think I've been past it for a while. But I still hate him, and I'm still not sure how to deal with that. I don't want this hate any longer. I've converted as much of it as I can to pity, believe me, but there is so much, so much of everything, I could power all the cabs in NYC with all of the feeling.

I think I'm onto something, though. It's not like I sit around being angry with him or even devote any real time to the hatred (this post is long and is certainly the longest time I've spent pondering this situation since January). I think it's easy to forget about someone completely if they are in your presence, even if they aren't close, and harder to forget someone if there is always an air of mystery or complete absence associated with them. So I'll test this for a while. It's a struggle, but I can't keep carrying this weight around with me. I've got to be free.

Whew, that was quite a lot. Back to fun things now, yes!

____
*name changed for privacy (not his, but others')

What do you name rectangular cow hide?

I got three hours of sleep between 3:30 and 6:30 this morning. I taught my last lab for the semester today (yea!) and after I got home, Mike and I biked to a nearby Barnes & Noble booksellers to get leather journals for which I had half-off coupons. We love a good deal, and we love a good journal. Boom, adventure.

We got to the B&N and checked out their journals, but decided since they didn't have all of the types on sale, we would go home and drive to another one for the full selection. Note: This pretty much reversed any fuel-saving we were going for with the biking. Also note: We were pretty darn tired after seven or eight miles including some hills.

And now we have journals, and they are neat. I want to name mine but I can't think of what to name it. Suggestions are welcome. I'm a fan of people names, pet names, nice sounding words (I won't limit word type here), but nothing cutesy.

I want to write in it but I'm afraid. I wrote about this type of apprehension in a post from last fall. I think I'll leave a few pages blank this time as well. I like a page for the cover to hit, so I'll leave that one blank. The next page will someday hold a starter image, and perhaps a few words, no more than ten. The next will be an introduction or sorts, but it's difficult to write one without knowing what the tome holds. And the next, if I'm feeling committed, will be a table of contents after I have filled all of the pages to my liking. It might even be an evil table of contents, holding only odd clues as to what will be found on the future pages, or related thoughts that I'll come up with later.

I love planning. It's such a shame I don't follow through more often. Your post today, Paul, gosh, it resonated with me. Thank you for that.

Saturday Night Salmon

Aside from one night we had (bad) boxed frozen salmon fillets, this is the first time we've had salmon/fish/{anything not chicken, turkey, or beef} for dinner since we moved here.

Mustard + Syrup Glazed Baked Salmon with Pineapple*
-salmon
-pancake syrup + mustard for sauce
-pineapple + juice from can for extra juiciness
-spices to taste
(real recipe here)

Baked Diced Seasoned Potatoes
-russet potatoes
-canola oil
-spices to taste

This took forever to make but it was delicious when it was finally done and we enjoyed espresso drinks while waiting for the dishes to finish baking. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but we ate all of the salmon we prepared, so no retakes...for now. We used less than a third of the salmon we bought yesterday, so there's hope. About three bites into the meal last night, Mike said contemplatively, "I think we need to make this for two and a half more meals..."

Oh yeah, the Gators won yesterday, so I am all kinds of happy right now. Your "Rage!" text yesterday was great, Brandon. Thanks.

____
*The recipe calls for Dijon mustard and maple syrup, but we only had yellow and regular pancake, respectively, and it still turned out pretty tasty.

Holiday Greetings

If you are reading this and actually know me, and you would like a greeting card this holiday season, send me your current mailing address if you are not absolutely certain I already have it.

DO IT.

If you have holiday card ideas, send them to me or comment or something because otherwise you will get a horribly photoshopped photo on the front of our two cats wearing Santa hats and on the inside it will say:

We tried to come up with something clever, but we couldn't. Thanks for putting up with our crappy uncreative card. Actually, this goes along great with the holiday season, doesn't it? Seasons greetings from Kiki, Mike, Ellie, and Ceri, from California, where our weather may be weird, but it's better than yours.

And you know you don't want that card.

In pursuit of style

Those of you who know me probably know that I am not a fashion connoisseur. I'm not a get-my-hair-done, mani-pedi kind of girl.

You may be surprised to know that I am a big fan of style. I might define it differently than some people, but it's something I admire and aspire to have in my life.

I wasn't raised on brand names and high-end products, and I grew up with furniture that didn't match, bathrooms without a theme color, and the notion that practicality always trumped appearance.

Some time in middle school I realized that I had the power to determine how my hair looked (even if I lacked the skills needed to make it look good). Around that same time I started noticing what types of clothing flattered my body shape the best. In high school I discovered the joy of making my own jewelry from string, wire, and random junk I found on the road, or small, aesthetically pleasing items like ice cream sample spoons or colorful buttons. My creativity led me to a variety of bad-taste designs, but the joy I had making the jewelry and wearing it to school stayed with me.

Since I tend to wear clothes until they either don't fit, tear, break, or indecently expose me, I've never felt compelled to wear stylish things except on special occasions. Less personal things, however, have almost always appealed to me as a way to express my inner stylish being, similar to my jewelry adventures in high school, but in a better way now that I actually have money to spend on things.

None of this would be apparent if you were to visit the apartment and see our mismatched furniture and unthemed rooms, but give me a few years and a good job and I think my abode will become a wonderful place of expression.

For now, I'm settling for awesome notecards, gadgets, coffee mugs, and picture frames to satisfy my need for a stylish setting. Another discovery made recently: I get a lot of joy out of photographing style. Not that I'd ever want a hot pink reindeer and disco ball set in my home or yard, but I like the picture of it. Sometimes odd style that contradicts my own tastes can be made into enjoyable style through photography.

So, if I'm ever at your house and I decide to take a picture of a chair, entertainment center, or towel rack, I either like your style, or I think it would look better in picture form. For me, at least, it's win-win.

If I didn't have my left pinky

I crashed my left bike handlebar into a garbage bin today. My pinky got caught between the handlebar and the plastic of the bin. It hurt. The crash was loud enough that this dude walking on the sidewalk ahead of me turned around and asked, "Are you oKAY?" in a tone so strained his voice cracked.

All of that because I was checking out an armchair on the side of the road. It was ugly and torn, and by the time I realized that I was all of three inches from the garbage bin.

Whoops. At least my cool gloves softened some of the blow.

Give up your whining and be the crazy

I want to express myself in vibrant slices of color. Split my happiness into pieces and smear the juice onto canvas with my fingers. Peel the skin off my fruit of energy and make potpourri that could power a city. I want to draw those bodies dancing, with lines of motion so the music would come off the page and smack your ears. You couldn't deny it. You couldn't be sad anymore. You'd have to get up and realize that you can do it, too. You'd have to fling your arms around and be the crazy (the crazy) you are. You'd have to love it all. I'd make you. You'd have to give all of this up and live again.

Privacy Things

Happy December!

If I had a way to post things on here (or some related place) where I restricted access to only people I knew...what would I write? What would I write that I would only want my friends to read?

I've been thinking about this since I've set up my LJ friends' page. Some friends post things that seem worthy of a "friends only" privacy setting, but other things just seem random and not personal.

Would I write more personal things? I feel like I get personal on here sometimes. Would you want to read personal things? I want to pick your minds, readers. Either put yourself in my shoes or think of what I'd write on some restricted access page. What would I write? What would you write?

Aaaaaaannnd, comments! Go!