a lineage of doctor who cakes

since ryan revealed all the wonderment of doctor who to me back in... 04? (was it really that long ago!?), i've been adventuring with doctor who icons and cakes. yep. tasty delicious cakes ^_^

liz and i recently bravely entered into a new area of caking - we made fondant icing!

before i unveil the latest creation, let me roll you through past cakes...

first, was the Dalek Cake



i made a chocolate swiss roll from scratch, which was very very messy, but also very very tasty.

then, the TARDIS Cake



Ryan had a TARDIS shaped cake for his 3rd or 4th birthday, and asked for a reprise of such a beloved cake for his 26th (i think it was 26th). Kerry, Ryan's sister, and I toiled a bit to get the thing standing, and it didn't taste too magnificent, but it looked great, and the cupcakes did taste good--we we made out in the end.

then there was the Slitheen Cake



which, as you can see, looks like crap. BUT, it tasted brilliant and everyone enjoyed the green-colored, lemon-flavored wonderment of its insides, so I guess that's a win on one front.

then, the Cyberman Cake





he was made mostly of frosting. and although most people ate the cake out from under the super thick layer of gray marshmallowy fondant, it did taste incredible and i'd say he looks pretty amazing too. double win.

now... what's next?

some winter bard

startling though a joyous scene,
the sight of a sick man
dancing in the street

his feet caked in red mud
and bandaged stubs
where fingers should be

dancing and laughing
to the strumming and humming
of an old bard's song

the day before Christmas
amidst the shoppers and quarrelers
inspiring children and mothers

sewing the spirit's seed
through imaginary gardens
brought to life through the words

of a traveling bard with no name
and three children at his feet
chiming bells and trash can covers

snow (to be continued)

first, there was no snow.



and then there was. (looks like we even got some paper snow...)



lots of snow.







Jack looks surprised at all the white stuff.



or maybe he was scared, seeing has how he ended up in ryan's lap ^_^ kawaii!

happy chrimstas

decorating the tree (part 3)

the first part of the decorations to go on the tree was the bow at the top, preceded by the red string at the top of the tree and the hook on the ceiling--a preventative measure to keep the tree and the computer safe from one another at all times.



Rowdy helped with the lights.



a little garland goes a long way.



Jack helped us make this really long paper chain.



pretty lights... but missing something...



cards and presents add the final touches ^_^

kitties' first tree (part 2)

i don't suspect anyone will find the need for commentary here...

oh crimbo tree (part 1)

we went to Hyannis Garden Center after I called a few places who told me they didn't have any more trees left. This place had plenty and at all sorts of prices. We picked out a medium tree ^_^



Here's Liz and I walking into the store to pay for the tree. I was so happy to get one finally. We'd all been so busy with work and school and stitches and all sorts, we had to wait until the 18th to finally get the tree.



The tree didn't exactly fit in the car, but we made it home just fine.



Liz and I did all the tree putting up, which Ryan did exactly what I'd asked him to: take pictures of everything.



Liz loves the smell of pine, how cute ^_^



It took a little jiggery pockery...



... but we got the tree standing pretty straight in the end.

troubleshooting

to pin point the problem,
just let her cry.

hold her with big arms.
keep her warm and close

until the fire is drowned,
doused out with reason.

canadian pancakes

a fondly on the sofa, he
picked up at the airport

on his way home from the south.
so he chooses to catch her,

make her pancakes
while finishing the local brew

straight from the jug.

butter out, and syrup warming on the stove
along side the cooper bottomed pan

if he's going to make her breakfast
he's going to do it properly.




seduction is not an art,
it's a skill.

dear big little orange

dear big little orange cat,

two years old
and you still sleep

on my head at night,
slowly pushing

my head off the pillow
until i wake up, and reclaim it.

you've got a wet sniffer
and you're sneezing again

sleeping more because
of your kitty sized cold.

i am sick at home,
for the second day now

and i'm more inclined
to take you to the vet's

than i am
to take myself to the doctor's.

all my love, to my little bit orange monster,
get well soon

in a boy's room

we lie there naked under the blankets, but not touching

the ceiling is dark
except for the crack under the door

and the street light glow sneaking in
from under the curtains over the big window

i wish there was something to look at

i close my eyes so tight
that i can see colorful shapes

'will you tell me a story?' i ask

'what?' you must have been sleeping, you sound startled

'never mind' i say, and open my eyes again
and wait for the morning so i can leave

on "This Feels Like Normal"

step 1: get a free chapbook. 

step 2: read it over reheated ziti with marinara sauce. 

step 3: be grateful you're not still dating.



This Feels Like Normal is a little chappy by brandon scott gorrell, matthew savoca and colin bassett. it came in the mail this afternoon and i devoured the surprise poetry treat over lunch. i'd completely forgotten about the email i sent requesting a copy. 

unexpected poetry in the mail is always a delight.

even better, i liked it. i didn't love it, but i did like it.

brandon, matthew and colin are what i expect from boys who write poetry. boys who write poetry are analytical, self-defacing/praising, sad, unmetered and they make funny faces at the girls they love--girls they may or may not have told they love them.

there were moments, over coffee and fruit salad, where sincerity crept up out of the murky commentary on emotions as revealed through poems. the boys were center stage though. and the poetry proclaimed itself poetry despite any form or poetic tendencies to denote it, rather, distinguish it from angsty note-book scribbles or never-sent love-notes.

so the chap doesn't sound like it's done much really. but as i turned the last page, hoping for that "i love you too" to set me free, to love them poet-e-poet, there was no last page to turn to. i have been left wanting more. much like a girl might--a girl dating a boy poet.

i guess that's just what they do.

three out of three
get four out of five.

go google yourself

here i was, innocently at work in the writing center at umass dartmouth when one of the tutors beside me started to google herself and go on about it. i hadn't played the google-myself game in a little while, so i joined her.

only to find a mention of my work in an anthology i'd never heard of.

the link was to the loewak institutue, dating back to October 5th of this year.

i read, and followed the link to for godot where, after a little searching, i found myself giggling in the back of the center over the absurd array of sarcasm, wit, fury and disdain cluttering the comments section of this announcement.

the 4000 ish page anthology, free for download, can be retrieved from either of the two sites above; though, i reccommend you save it as a file, otherwise it takes an age to open.

my name is on page 299 under a little poem.

ashraf is on page 1450
craif perez is on page 2664

there are almost 4000 poets (most, i assume, with internet presence). some of your friends are probably listed in this massive anthology too.

and so? well, so, i didn't write that poem. ashraf didn't write the one he's been credited with. craig, i'm pretty sure, didn't write the one above his name either.

check out all the comments on for godot. this is beautiful controversy at work.

i can't wait for the next issue ^_^

genre heart ache

a brooding demi
takes well in small doses

to the breaking habbits
to the fickle measures

of a bored Canadian man
in a raised collar



she escapes the dimensions of her portrait
leaves the wall behind

-the frame and distances of light-

to betray your fantasy
the export of lust on a canvas built for two

love and religion

everyone is talking.



the gay rights issue at large right now is one i have no trouble taking a firm stance on - unlike many political issues wherein i don't know or understand the full scope of the issue. there isn't much to understand here: the right for same-sex couples to marry in the state of California has been rescinded. and the cause is even more audacious... what place does a church have in lobbying for a vote one way or the other? there's that good old saying "separation of church and state" composed by the men who fought to secure the human-rights of all men and women governed by this country. blah blah, you've heard all this already, i know.

it may be too late in the day for me to shake a moving passion from the bones in my fingers, but that's no reason not to make a small stand in favor for all of those who plan on attending peaceful protests on Saturday to defend the rights of their fellow men, women, straight and gay.

to think, that in one day, we as a country made so much progress. we elected a mixed-race president and a little town in Oregon elected the first trans-gendered mayor. and on that very same day, we as a nation reminded the world just how bigoted and backwards we can be with the several gay-marriage ban election questions. bans which people agree. it makes my stomach turn.

cnn is awesome

i just saw a hologram, a real one, on cnn during the election coverage. am very pleased. technology is cool. ^_^

to address

i want to address the absurdity
of a measurable pleasure

the length of your tongue
against the width of time

and what we use to cover it
when we're not active

in a winter worn room
stained mugs on dusty book jackets

follow the parade of mire
murk and muddle through literature

manuscripts a friend sent
in a big brown envelope

before a late birthday wish
to an artist in Manhattan

Muwi the Amazing Lawn Mower

i want one

crocodile in my lunch

bento boxes are insane



people with far too many spare minutes.

and too cute to eat.





flicker source

i thought this was cute

mccain and palin picture

waste not

and how.

MSN.com had an amazing article today... ten best ways to waste your time on the internet and some of them actually looked like checking out... (click on the images to go to the sites)

such as the failblog:



a website called "Stumble" which allows you to randomly discover (via stumbling) new and interesting sites you probably never would have heard of or seen before such as Iron Dog Studio's "Tater Titan":



and the third one i really liked was this... the spirograph amazingnessness. reminds me of this ridiculous spirographic pen thing i had when i was a kid. i remember using it to write letters to my cousin Molly oh so many years ago. the pen would spin by itself and draw these kinds of designs... spirograph here

wanting

for the want not more than a simple beauty
to life and a sweet love along the trim

the seams of birds flutter by the cat
humble on the window ledge

a pink cake and too few candles
with two friends whose families you don't know

redirect

since my blog isn't that interesting right now, check out Karl Pilkington's Blog

amazing. it's the only word.

satisfied fool - karl pilkington

part 1


part 2


part 3



if you don't know who Karl Pilkington is, I suggest you download some of the Ricky Gervais Podcast (there are old episodes floating around) or youtube the phrase "monkey news".

Karl is a funny man when paired with Ricky and Steven. in this little documentary though, he's somewhat pathetic and uncharacteristically likeable.

Drill, Drill, Drill

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following about Sarah Palin:

Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Eve Ensler September 5, 2008

decorative fruit

to challenge the patriotism of fruit flies
we play with the plastic of labor
on the day we closed the blinds
to avoid the sun

arranged in patterns then scattered
the flies flutter in the air above,
desperate for sweetness,
fooled by the shape and color of the ground

and we are at their most
the gods that pretend to love them
playing with creation and testing faith
or scientists desperate for entertainment

on a warm weekend in september
on the east coast of a large coffee table
where the fruit is rearranged every four years
with the intention of growing something real

on a wednesday in new england

i'm hearing things
violent cows mooing in the woods
and i can feel the big toe
on my left foot
creaking as i walk
nonchalant
in the opposite direction
from the disturbed bovine festival
between trees and bramble

foux da fa fa

Zombies Are Coming

be prepared.

a discovery

i could share the words and meanings
of every song in a dream

to

my love, my loves. lovers, my dreamers and wanderers.

amongst city blocks and foreign whispers
in culling and cooing accents

to a dance

to a cadence and a sculpted

episode, scripted to warrant all of our secrets.

new fruits

plucked from the watering hole
the light weight posture
of diversity and collage therapy
through mesh wire netting and fairy-tales

we sat silently watching
a movie play off dvd

egg shells

a tough outter skin
cracked and worn

with the fatigue
brought on by responsible

nature and throughful gestures
towards underserving wonderers

marching to a proverb
of inditerminant origin

in my sleep we dance
to the emptiness left

when all the sound
is in murmurs

super hero hair

hair hair hair hair hair

NEW HAIR!