In Minneapolis for 36 hours.  Just got off the light rail and was walking 3 blocks to my hotel and a homeless guy stopped me.

"Pleeeeeeeeease can I have money for something to eat? I haven't eaten since yesterday, I'm sooooooo hungry, they kicked me out of the shelter, I'm so hungry... hungry hungry starving starving..."

And I said, "Dude, I have no cash. All I have is plastic... I'm here on work. If I had something, I would give it to you."

He wouldn't let it go. He figured if he pleaded with me more, money would magically appear in my wallet for me to give him.  "Pleeeeeeeease! Anything! I'm so hungry hungry! SOOOO hungry! Aaaaaggggh!!"

Then I remembered, "Oh wait! I have a fresh sandwich in my bag. It's turkey and swiss. Here." And he changed 180 degrees and said in a totally different voice, "nah, forget it."  

Hahahaha. Idiot.

PS: No need to tell me the millions of things I should see and do while I'm here. I literally just got here (it's almost 9pm) and I teach a full day tomorrow and then I go straight back to the airport. 

My current no-knead recipe, boiled down to even less effort than the official New York Times version, which includes some unnecessary steps on baking day IMHO:

3 1/2 cups white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt (*)
1/2 teaspoon active dry bread yeast (I use Red Star from the supermarket)
2 cups water, and a splash more

Mix the dry ingredients. Add the water. With a fork just combine it well; don't knead; this takes less than a minute. It should be a little too wet to knead.

Cover the bowl and allow to sit for 18-24 hours.

Shove an empty pyrex casserole pan (or similar) in the oven, with the lid on, and preheat to 450 degrees.

Remove pan carefully. Toss a little corn meal in the bottom. Take the dough out of the pan; it'll be sticky but manageable. Fold it over on itself (*). Drop it in the pan.

Shove your sticky hands back in your oven mitts and stick the pan in the oven for 30 minutes with the lid on.

Remove the lid and bake another 15 minutes. (**)

Remove and allow to cool a few minutes before devouring.

I was a latecomer to the no-knead party but I think I've got this down.

(*) Salt is a leavening agent and does add a little air to the bread which is nice when there's whole wheat in there. This was a key improvement for me.

(**) This step is optional. The results are a little prettier, but it does take a whole second, and I did say this was zero-effort bread.

(***) If you bake it in an uncovered loaf pan, you'll get a very hard crust. You can cover a loaf pan with aluminum foil if you haven't got a nice pyrex with a lid. The latter is worth finding because you get a very pretty peasant loaf.

Lots of hubbub about Russia "hacking" or "rigging" our elections lately.

But those words aren't quite accurate, are they. Even if the allegations are correct, the Russians didn't alter the results, or install malware on our machines. (If they did, the only sane thing to do is a do-over, a heavily audited one on paper ballots.) It's more accurate to say the Russians "influenced" our voters, by publishing hacked DNC emails and creating false narratives about one of the contenders, among other tactics.

And while it's no trick to temporarily stir up infochaos, it really shouldn't stick. Not against an informed populace, anyway. Fortunately for Russia, they didn't choose an informed populace. They chose us.

If one thing has become clear to me, it's that Americans - on all sides - don't want information. Information is hard. It has no feelings. It holds our hearts up the the mirror and forces us to look, to reassess how we feel. We don't like that.

We want ammunition. We don't care if news is "fake" if it supports our narrative. We don't learn facts to challenge our bias and increase our knowledge base - we learn "factoids" we can trot out to make ourselves appear, and feel, "right." Even when we're wrong.

And we certainly don't mind being shown hard evidence that we were duped. If cognative dissonance doesn't kick in, allowing us to deny the reality we see before us, we'll simply blame our gullibility on the victim, claiming we were only duped because the person being smeared is so bad that the false bit could have been true. Rational people, of course, would wonder what other false narratives have skewed their perceptions. That ain't us - we give ourselves a hug and - to work a terribly overworked word even harder - double-down.

That's the American way. Whether or not it's a by-product of the Age of Internet is beside the point; it's our way of life now. And it has consequences.

Look, it makes sense for people to be angry when a guy cons them. But when they willingly hand him their wallets - and another $20 on top of that - you have to conclude that they want to be conned. They enjoy it.

And it isn't going to stop. 

A wise man once said "be it heaven or hell, the Christmas we get we deserve." Trust this guy - he was so wise he chose to die before his time rather than live one more second in this brave new world. (What a lucky man he was.)

OK.  We're recording tonight, and while Matt is recording some guitars and keys, I sat back and played with my phone and let the Internet happen.

I'm not sure how it happened, but I wound up on YouTube, and a video popped up in my "Hey, this video might appeal to you" List... which is always interesting because I told Google and YouTube that I didn't want it keeping track of my YouTube video watching history or my search history... so I'm not sure what it bases its suggestions on.  But either way, it suggested this quickie compilation of the dance numbers from a movie I'd never heard of (The Rich Man's Frug?) that Bob Fosse choreographed.  So I watched it.

AND GOOD GOD, this very well may be one of the top 20 most amazing things my eyeballs have EVER seen, and I've seen some cool shit.  This here is a miracle and the pinnacle of what humans can accomplish.

Behold:

RIGHT!??!?!

WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL WAS THAT?!? OK, yeah, it was from Sweet Charity. But other than that, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT??

(And am I the only one who was looking for Jenn Rice in that video?)

So I then read the comments, and miraculously, many were positive, and not the usual mouth-breathing lose-all-faith-in-humanity comments. Many people kept talking about "Emma" Something-or-Other and "Maybe" and even mentioning Beyonce, I didn't know what any of that meant, but enough people were talking about these things as if some person named Emma had a song called Maybe and that the video was inspired by the Fosse thing.

I'm a curious chick, so I entered those words into YouTube's search bar and I was expecting to be taken to some Arianna Grande bullshit (not that I could pick an Arianna Grande out of a lineup)... but the next thing I know I was watching a video that looked like it was directly ripped off/inspired by the Fosse thing indeed, and the lead singer looked like a 10-years-older Baby Spice maybe... and hey what do you know, that's exactly who/what this is. And HOLY SHIT, what is this song?! It has... genuinely interesting and challenging chord progressions! A really interesting melody! Damn fine production! It isn't auto-tuned to hell! It was created with genuine fucks given! 

Apparently this song "Maybe" by Emma "Please Don't Call Me Baby Spice Anymore" Bunton was a hit 10+ years ago, but I guess I stopped listening to Top 40 radio long before that so it never made it into my ears even once.

Hot damn, I love this little song!

And the video is cute, too.  It ain't no Fosse, but the nod is appreciated. If you're gonna steal an idea, steal from a great one, I guess.

Anyway, that's all I have to report.

Enjoy.

I've decided that when I die, my headstone should make mention of the fact that I could sing pretty okay, and that I really like socks. 

Matt bought me a pair of new socks the other day called "Heat Holders." I think I may have heard them advertised on the radio, but maybe not. But either way, Matt bought them for me and SWEET HOLY GOD LORDT ABOVE THESE SOCKS ARE THE MOST MAGICAL THINGS I HAVE EVER PUT ON MY FEET ALL CAPS. I have incredibly sexy cankles that swell up, and by 3pm pretty much every pair of socks that I own are digging into my shins and then they roll down an inch, and then they dig in there, and they roll down an inch, and by 6:30pm my lower legs look like a hand grenade. Very sexy. But these socks are big enough where they don't dig into my legs, but they don't fall down either. 

The inside of these socks are like brushed soft yarn... like long yarn... I don't know how to describe it, but it's like having your foot engulfed in the virgin baby hair of Scandinavian angels. And if your feet sweat, somehow these socks keep your feet reaaaaaaallly warm, but never damp. They are pretty much the perfect thing. I have the feeling they weren't made to be worn with shoes/boots, but maybe just worn as slippers around the house maybe... they're really thick. But I threw on a pair of boots over them today and when I took my first step I squeeeeeed audibly and started making up songs in dumb voices about how I was walking on magical clouds. So put these effers on your holiday gift list, and ask for nothing else, because no gift you get will be better than these. I got the fuschia/cerise striped ones. They make me stupidly happy.

What else is going on...

If you haven't watched John Oliver's final 2016 clip of Last Week Tonight, it is very much worth the 25 minute investment. If your 2016 has sucked as much as everyone else's has, then you will especially like the final five minutes of it. 

What else is going on...

I have pretty big and not very funny confession to make, but I will make that confession in a friends-locked post because it's not for public consumption... so if you're not logged into LJ or if you don't have an account on OPW, you're outta luck.

What else is going on...

Matt and I have been recording a Christmas EP, and so far we've got four songs done out of the five. The song titles so far are "Everyone's a Child When it Snows," which is not particularly "Hot Breakfasty" in that it's not funny or dorky, but quite sweet and a touch precious even... but we're OK with it. Next is "Don't Get Me Anything," which is an upbeat fun thing which parrots my anti-noun stance on gift giving... and please for the love of God, no more gifts for my damn inner child... I'm forty-fucking-five and I don't need toys. Up next is "Christmas is for Believers," which is also not particularly funny, but has Matt's clever wordplay and also a very honest, even-handed and kind way of approaching what could be a controversial topic: non-Christians who celebrate Christmas. The song we recorded tonight is called "Clean Blank Slate" which starts off saying something like "It's January 1st and everything magically resets and all the bullshit that was going on last year just disappears," and then the rest of the song is saying, "Yeah, wouldn't it be nice if it was like that, but it isn't." When we were recording the backing vocals, we got the idea of burying a subliminal message in there... so we added some lyrics waaaay low down in the mix, and I'm really proud of what we did and how it came out. We have one song left to record called "The Holiday Shift" which has a similar feel to our 2013 hit "An Idiot for Christmas", and is about a person who has to work on Thanksgiving or Christmas Day for the sales, and how they feel about it. (Spoiler: You might think it's a horrible thing, but our hero actually likes the extra hours and overtime pay, and is happy to have an excuse not to hang with his family.) We're releasing this new Christmas EP on December 17th at a show at World Café Live at the Queen at our "Hot Breakfast! & Friends Present: A Very Dorky Christmas." It should be super-fun!


Allrighty, that's all I got for now. Tune in soon, true-believers, to an LJ post near you for my big ol' secret confession. 

xo!

x-posted from xtingu.livejournal.com/

I vomited words late last night (well, early this morning), and I don't feel like copying/pasting them here since it's a pain to do that with my phone because there's formatting involved.

It's a public LJ post, no login required. Feel free to comment on it anonymously... or you can even login with your Facebook or Twitter or Google credentials if you want to be notified of replies to your comments. 

Or you can ignore it... it is a bit of a shitshow. 

I'm not saying it's GOOD or even useful by the way. I just puked scream-of-conciousness style all over my phone's thumb-keyboard (yay Blackberry Priv!) and it made me feel better.

http://xtingu.livejournal.com/1030927.html

I maybe go to FB once every 3 days or so, and when I do, it's while I'm relieving myself for 5 minutes at the most. (Sorry for that visual.) But I've promised myself not to go to FB for a full week. I want to give the gloaters a chance to gloat, for people to get whatever they need out of their systems, and to give the dust a chance to settle a bit.

The upshot is: I will use my white privilege to stand by and protect people with more melanin that I have. I will use my cis/straightish privilege to defend LGBTQA people. 

And I will hope that before Obamacare gets yanked that they have some other healthcare option in place for people like me without an employer healthcare option. 

“At that moment, in the sunset on Watership Down, there was offered to General Woundwort the opportunity to show whether he was really the leader of vision and genius which he believed himself to be, or whether he was no more than a tyrant with the courage and cunning of a pirate. For one beat of his pulse the lame rabbit's idea shone clearly before him. He grasped it and realized what it meant. The next, he had pushed it away from him.”

― Richard Adams, Watership Down

For "General Woundwort", substitute "The United States of America".

I grieve.

I write and draw every day.

The new plan is a simple one - which is arguably the biggest reason that I like it so much. Call it positive affirmation, call it a daily chant, or call it whatever you like, but that opening sentance is something I will write down every day.

Then I will do it.

My intent is to try to do 1/2 hour each in the morning and in the evening for a total of one hour writing and one hour drawing every day. If it's a crazy day, and I have no time, I'll allow just 1/2 hour each. Then the next day I will get back to the full hour each.

It might seem like a lot, but it's really not when you realize how much free time I should have each day. That, of course, assuming that I'm not screwing around and wasting my time.

Set my timer and go. I like that.

The best part? Sure, there will be some garbage, but there will also be some good stuff, and it will pile up. I'll have a collection of work in a very short span of time. It's the best way I can think of to make that happen.

All my illustration and writing projects can happen - I just need to eat that elephant one bite at a time.

So, what's on the list now? What are my current projects that I want to focus on?

Art

• The Greek Gods - A new project with an old friend. He's designing a card game and I'm doing most (all?) of the illustration work. I'm really looking forward to this, but it's not a small order. 14 gods by the end of November. Good thing I'm planning on spending an hour on art every day.
• Relics - Yes, I'm still plugging away on this - slowly but surely. I drift off at times, and at other times I've had paying clients that took priority, but it' long past time I finished the third faction so we can send out a beta version for public release. This is the third year that I've been hoping I could complete the work in time for an X-Mas beta release.
• Sketchwork - I doubt I will have much time to focus on anything but the above items before the new year, but if I do, I would like to put together a free digital 'sketchbook' to give away. This might include anything and everything from random doodles to WIPs for client work.

Writing

• Patch Book - writing is the easy one. I really only want to focus on the book. Maybe it's because it's NaNoWriMo, and I have that sense of missing out, but I really want to get this damn thing done. Much like Relics, this one has been gnawing at me for a while, and it's past time.
• Another Blog?! - I was thinking about where I would want to post chapters for ARCs. I could post here, but I get so damn worried about eating up my 'daily post' on random things, and this place seems, well, personal. The very nature of the single post per day seems like it makes it more intimate. So probably not here. LJ? Maybe. Hell, GRRM posts there (still, I believe). But probably no. Same issue as here. I have a LOT of old posts there that are pretty personal to me. So I'm thinking that I might clear out any / all posts over at mrlich.wordpress.com and post there. It's not like there's a lot there,  and it would make a good spot to just post 'book updates'. My 'professional writing' update location. But it means another location online that I'm updating. I already feel too scattershot online. That's the whole reason I set up mrlich.com as a menu for where to find me online. I need to narrow my focus a bit online, but that seems like a project for another day.

Journal Update

I went and visited the King yesterday. I had the option to route my travels through Memphis, so I did. I'd never visited Graceland, so it seemed like an ideal opportunity.

It was interesting. Not the $40-$80 price for tickets interesting to me, but interesting. Not upset that I did it (how would I know what I thought of it otherwise) but I probably wouldn't go back unless it was with a group of friends, and that would likely be more for the company than for the tour.

They give you an iPad to use through the tour which has a complete guided tour narrated by John Stamos. Why John Stamos? I have no idea. Still, it was neat, and I like that it allowed us to choose our own pace. I took a crap ton of photos, so if any of you would like to see some, let me know below.

I had to make my way back to Decatur last night to pick something up though, which made my trip to Memphis a 6 hours of driving detour. Bah. Worth it.

I did, of course, enjoy a grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich after the tour.

Now I'm working my way to Kansas City for my next project. It's not a YUGE project, so I'm not sure how long I will be there, but a few days at least. It's a small enough region (for the project portion) that I should be able to stay at one hotel for the duration. That's such a good thing for me. I love my job, but these smaller projects tend to mean bouncing around every night. It's a bit annoying to pack up everything every day. Even two nights / hotel seems so much more worthwhile. Ahhh, the life of a nomad.

The election. I'm over it. Yes, I understand how important it is. I have a low threshold though for repetition, and both sides (and their supporters) are saying so much of the same damn thing over and over again that I'm really just ready to scream and start breaking shit.

Also, it breaks my faith in humanity that anyone could think that Trump would be even an acceptable president - let alone a good one. I mean that sincerely. I don't see any plus to him. The only thing I've heard said about him (that I believe) is that he won't be 'business as usual'. Probably true. 1. Not being equal to is not the same as 'greater than'. 2. I will never have kids, but if I did, I would never want them or my beloved nephews to ever act like he does regularly. Why would I want someone like that representing out country? I honestly don't know as much as I should about Hilary, but what little I do makes her an infinitely better choice than him. Infinitely. Even if she was going to be 'business as usual' (which I have no reason to believe she will be).

Already over my 1/2 hour. More later.

ETA:

First

I was terrified. I felt like I was clinging to the edge with bloody fingernails. It was that moment in the movie where you see the killer moving in and the next victim is oblivious to what's coming.

Then

I wanted to be physical. I wanted to smash, to break, to rend and tear. To smash whatever I could get my hands on.

All the while knowing it wouldn't help, but it's what I understand.

Now

This is a different kind of fight. It's a kind I've never taken part in before. I don't know the first thing about it, if I'm honest.

Looks like it's time to learn.

I should mention:

The first time I taught for Wharton Business School which was earlier this year (over the summer), Matt met me at the front door after my first day of class to break the unspeakably tragic news that Christian Salcedo (our bass player for In The Light) was killed in a tragic accident that morning. 

I just taught for Wharton a second time last week, and after my first day of teaching, Matt met me at the door to break the news of Grandmom's passing earlier that day. 

I will be teaching for Wharton again in March of 2017. I DEMAND that everyone I know and love should just spend my first day of teaching (Monday, March 6th) in their bed, doing nothing strenuous whatsoever. Just read a book and nuzzle, OK?

Thank you, drive through. 

(x-posted to xtingu.livejournal.com)

Haven't blogged in eons. Life has been whizzing by.

Matt's super-active, fashion-plate, socialite grandmom (age 95) was diagnosed with aggressive stomach cancer about 3 months ago, and it's shocking how quickly she went from vibrant and happy to a shell of a human, just withered and weak. We all rotated vigil and visited pretty much daily, keeping her company, playing cards, BSing, and keeping her spirits up until she no longer had the energy. About three weeks ago she seemed to stop fighting, and she left us on Monday (exactly one week ago). We had the wake yesterday (Sunday) and today we buried her. I will miss her very much; we had brunch together nearly every Sunday since Matt and I got together, and I will never forget how she accepted me into the family without question. In her final weeks I painted her nails so she felt a little more human. She told me she didn't like my new hair color, which made me happy she'd tell me. :-)  I loved her very much, and it's hard to believe she's gone.  Her ex-boyfriend-turned-dear-friend Harry will also be missed, as I imagine I won't see him around any longer. I'm not lying or exaggerating when I say I have a pretty good crush on Harry, all 89 years of him. 

Music-wise:
Played in two Eagles tribute shows (the band, not the team) a few weeks ago, which were fun but bittersweet since it was In The Light's first tribute since losing Christian (our bass player) so suddenly in the accident this summer. 

Played in a huge tribute to the 80s this past Saturday at The Queen as a fund raiser for City Theater. I sang a few songs but was so, so pround to be in the band. I sang backing vocals on every song, and got a Roland Handsonic electronic drum kit and programmed and played the crap out of it (or played actual hand percussion) for almost every song... even played some sax. That band was a true Dream Team of every instrumentalist I idolize, and it was an honor to be the weak link on that stage. 

Between Grandmom support and the tribute shows, Hot Breakfast has taken a bit of a back seat which happens from time to time but I don't like. Now that our obligations are over for a bit, we are focusing on getting our Christmas EP recorded and released in time for our December 17th Very Dorky Christmas Show at The Queen. We plan on turning the upstairs stage into a cheezy living room (complete with fake fireplace and couch and front door), and our Narrator will tell the audience how Hot Breakfast just doesn't have the Christmas spirit this year... as random musicians "stop by and knock on our door" and cheer us up by playing a song or two. It should be a really fun night and a cute homage to silly late-70s variety shows. (If only we could get Charo.)

Anyway, we buried Grandmom today, and after the repast we all went home for naps, and the core Casarinos got together for pizza. Betsy's sister and brother and their spouses came to town from Connecticut and California respectively, so it was nice to talk to them. We got on the topic of "Have you ever had a relative or friend visit you after they died" and that led us to talking about Edgar Cayce which led me to now have three Edgar Cayce books on my nightstand. I love my second family so, so, so much. 

Right now I'm laying in bed as Matt is playing guitar in the other room. There is nothing I love more than hearing the sounds of Matt's creativity echo through the house; the music he writes resonates with me so deeply and so perfectly, and I can't believe how lucky I am. I feel very loved and so warm and snuggly.

We'll be at my folks' place for a week starting this weekend... my dad is going to Asheville, NC to visit his sister, and my mom can't really be left home alone, so Matt and I are going to keep her company. We're bringing up some recording equipment so maybe I'll be able to lay down some lead vocals on the Christmas EP this week while Mom snoozes. (Mom likes to snooze. Luckily the back room where Matt and I stay is clear on the other side of the house.)

I'm sorry I haven't been very present online... I have been reading LJ and OPW but just not having the energy to respond. Caring for Matt's grandmom every day plus work travel and rehearsals was taking every brain cycle and every ounce of nurturing energy I had... and ultimately I ran out of juice.

(Speaking of which, it's probably time for an iron infusion soon. I should get my labwork done.)

Life has been insane, but as of right now, it is finally calm. It is bittersweet, this calm... but as always, life goes on. Everything continues. The leaves are changing color and starting to fall, and soon we'll nestle in for the winter, and with any luck will put the house up for sale this spring.

More soon.

originally posted at xtingu.livejournal.com