Okay, stage two of Operation C. Montrouzieri is under way. After there being several days where we saw few if any of our little friends, we are now seeing adults more frequently, and larvae. The larvae are awesome - and very hungry. Watching them chow down on mealy bugs is an inspiring sight. (Hopefully as the population levels shift they'll take on aphids as well, as K's pepper tree is having issues.) Now I'm hoping to get a stable colony going... which might be a little involved. (If the population does go up, though, I'll probably be looking to offload them on interested locals.)

Yesterday I was watching one, who had discovered a nice patch of mealy bugs to feast on, munch away, and I wondered if they were brighter than slugs. For comparison, yesterday I was trying to get a slug to eat. It smelled the seaweed, got all excited, and then starting swallowing gravel. The more I thought about it, the more likely the "smarter than slugs" hypothesis seemed. (Other recent amusements have involved watching slugs lay lots of eggs (in masses that look like greenish or orangish ramen noodles) and then eat them, because hey, eggs, seaweed, what's the difference?

Oh, and we've found three cockroaches this week. Which means that even if they are coming in from another apartment, it's far too likely they're getting a local foothold. So we get to work out what methods of roach control are both effective and appropriately environmentally conscious.

Tennessee considers making guns legal in bars.

Hey all. So because my thesis is defense is in just a bit more than a month I am not on LJ much these days.

Chris and I have been looking for apartments in California. I am amazed how much management quality changes with price. For instance, the cheapest place we are looking at (the price of which, by the way, would get you a luxurious apartment in this area) has management which 1) scheduled my apartment showing for a day they werent open, and 2) have informed me of this fact 4 times (the first one being a week after I originally scheduled and the other 3 being after I had already rescheduled for a time they were open). I am starting to think that they suck. At least they are not as bad as one of the apartments which could not even tell me if they had a bike rack on site. The high end places are much more full service. They have been sending me floor plans and photos of apartments which are open, have sent me directions, they knew about their buildings (and surrounding area), they are just....better. So here is the problem, though chris has been on a mission job hunting, without his income the nice places are just out of our price range. However, one of them was willing to work with us by charging us rent for only one cat, etc. to reduce their cost to us. They are also the closest to campus so I am hoping it works out.

So it doesn't compare to emergency surgeries, unpleasant medical diagnoses, messy breakups/divorces, un(der)employment, or any of the myriad of other things that have gone wrong for some of my friends this year, but tonight my (only) credit card was denied in the grocery store checkout lane. Upon returning home and calling the credit card company, I found out that someone used my card to buy

[a] 8 tickets (or at least separate transactions) on Indian National Railways (New Delhi Station)
[b] 4 wireless packages from a city in Canada

Since I am quite manifestly not in either New Delhi or Canada, the CC company promptly canceled the charges and the card and will send me a new one. No real harm done other than short term annoyance. I hope their train ride is fun, I guess.

I'm curious as to where the # was stolen. We haven't used it for any new web purchases recently or even any stores that we haven't used before. At a guess their site was hacked, or more likely someone at a call center (definitely an Indian accent) got greedy. It is rather a moot point now.

However, I am aggravated with the credit card company in one respect - they said they tried to contact me last night because the New Delhi charges tripped their 'unusual expenditures' alerts. However, we got no message or email. I know they have the correct phone # because they asked me to confirm it, and I know they have the correct email because they send me a bill every month. So they're full of it on this one. It may be time to find a new credit card for that reason alone.

I'm in Campinas and haven't been writing much because I am dealing with chigger bites. Which I hate. And long days of lab tours and talking with students. I have taught a yoga class almost every day in the past week, which has been nice, as well as unexpected. I'm thinking maybe I should do yoga teacher training at some point. It would be fun to do this with more knowledge.

Today, I had a 25 minute conversation with a cab driver. In Portuguese! About biofuels! And I was pleased, and really tired afterwards. Today has been a rest day. Our fearless leader has been sick and a mix-up with our next stop meant that the thing that made the most sense was to stay in our comfy hotel for one more night. It's a big holiday (feriado) here so all of the on-campus things are closed. That meant venturing away for food and entertainment. We have had lovely breakfasts at the hotel, and until today, lunches and dinners at Bandejao, the student restaurant on campus. Subsidized meals are about one US dollar and mostly consist of beans and rice (arroz e feijao). One of my four meals was truly lovely, with sauteed greens and arugula salad, but most felt like I was eating an elementary school lunch. But it was cheap and very kindly provided by UNICAMP.

So, today, we had a lovely time, beginning with sleeping in until 8am, doing some laundry (which will hopefully be dry tomorrow), enjoying a nice breakfast, moving through a luxurious yoga class in the sun, and then coming up with a plan for food. The plan involved taking a cab to the Dom Pedro mall and getting food, but mostly seeing a movie. Going to a mall in Brazil on a holiday is not necessarily a good idea. It was very crowded. It was about a 30 minute wait in line to get our movie tickets. If we hadn't stopped at Starbucks to get, mmmm, a java chip frappuccino, we would have been in the theater at the beginning of the trailers. Instead, we got there pretty much at the beginning of the movie itself, but without time for pipoca. One of the students ended up leaving to get some popcorn after about 30 minutes and it was a lovely lunch.

For dinner, we found a fancy little deli and bought bread, olives, hearts of palm, sundried tomatoes, artichoke hearts and cheese. I managed to get the driver to stop at the grocery store and my three cohorts hopped out and bought tomatoes, star fruit and water while I talked about biofuels and the taxi driver's family (two sons, 17 and 14, two dogs, Charlie and Marlo). We are having class and then the hope is that there will be dancing for our last night in Campinas. I expect the java chip frappuccino to help with this plan. A sangha friend, Murilo, will probably join us and it will be fun to see him one more time this trip.

Tomorrow, we are on to Piracicaba and the service learning portion of our seminar. I'll be working in an orphanage I think and I hope the itching calms down a bit by then. I should take a picture of my bitten up feet and legs. It looks like I have measles.

Hey guys. I have a lot of responsibilities around my house. One of them is to loaf on the girl's sweaters so she knows which ones to wear.

I have been hard at work on t-shirt designs. It is difficult because I want it to be just right! I will have something soon though I promise.

I hope you are having a good day! Remember there are a lot of dogs outside in the summer. So be careful if you're outside! I love you guys!

Wallace Falls State Park, Gold Bar, WA
July, 2009

This one gives a better idea of the size of the falls, but still doesn't come close to it. It's a bit blurry because I bumped the tripod shifted during the exposure.

Call for Participants!

For PLACE/TIME, an Odyssey Labs Summer Institute Performance

The Event:

A daylong performance created for a single participant, based on that participant’s understanding of the world.

Part experimental theater, part artistic procession, and part psychological journey, Place/Time will happen only once and will have as its protagonist a single participant for whom the artists and actors are supporting characters in a fully immersive/participatory performance.

In previous journeys participants have found themselves in rowboats crossing the river Styx to the underworld, happened upon a tunnel echoing with recordings of their own thoughts, or been asked to conduct an orchestra of screams, laughs and tears. What will happen this time is a closely guarded secret.

Who You Are:

Participants must be available to participate in a daylong performance near Seattle and/or Arlington, WA, on July 31, 2009. Participants must also be willing to open their lives to us in preparation through a series of questionnaires, conversations, and interviews.

Who We Are:

The Odyssey Lab Summer Institute is an offshoot of Odyssey Works, a San Francisco-based interdisciplinary collaborative arts and performance group that explores the boundary between artist and audience. The Odyssey Lab Summer Institutes offers writers, artists, musicians, and performers the opportunity to deeply investigate theoretical questions surrounding audience-immersive performance as part of an intensive two-week residency program conceived of and facilitated by Abraham Burickson, Odyssey Works founder. Applying their
discoveries, the program will culminate in a daylong performance created for a single participant.

The Catch:

There is no catch. Participation is completely free. If you are interested in having a performance created for you, please email sovietsleepover (at) gmail (dot) com for an application. Inquiries may also be sent to this address. Be sure to include your name and phone number.

Wallace Falls State Park, Gold Bar, WA
July, 2009

twice tonight i've had freyr and mather right next to each other. earlier this evening i had mather on my lap, and freyr hopped up (probably interested in the pizza on the table in front of me), and they both stayed for a couple minutes. while working on office notes on the couch tonight, freyr curled up to sleep next to me, and mather came up and sat down by freyr to take a bath, then laid down until tod got up to let the dog out. yay for kitties getting along! sorry i don't have cute kitty pictures of the two together yet, but i am hoping that this will lead to the two cats being a good social support for each other. i think freyr's already a good thing for odin, since they seem to get along well, and freyr encouraged odin to eat (by sneaking in to steal a pawful of odin's dinner, and he likes to eat more when others think it tastes good, i guess).

Okay, one more stupid internet dalliance and then I'll work on the talk we're banging on for Frayed Wire.

It's summer. It's hot. Lately I've been growing my hair out, and playing a bit with putting it up in scarves -- it's about 4" long overall. The thought was to grow it long enough to be tie-able, and then put colors in it, but I'm bored with waiting.

Also, I own two skirts, both of which are a bit trashed from contra dancing. As a rule, I don't wear skirts.

However, because my brain is never actually content with anything, it has been suggesting "You know what you need? You need really!really! short hair again. And skirts to go with your sandals. Truuust me. It'd be cute. And you're allowed to be cute."

(Owing to my face shape, I think, I am called 'sir' pretty often with short hair, especially in winter. NYC is just that gender-normative. Since I don't actually wear men's clothing, and it's not a reading I intend, it's more annoying than entertaining. It seems my desired presentation permits either androgynous hair or androgynous clothes, but not both at the same time.)

So!

Poll #1426611 make my aesthetic choices for me
Open to: Friends, detailed results viewable to: All

What should I do with my hair?

Do I need skirts?

(Two girls of about thirteen and the one girl's mother are waiting in line for the bathroom in front of me after seeing RENT)

( Bit of a spoiler. Do not read if you don't know the plot of RENT. )

GAL ON THE BUS FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO (as we rode past the light rail station construction on Broadway): "You know, I hate when you, like, look at something, and then you suddenly realize that it's not there any more."

On June 13th and 14th, I participated in an experiment coordinated by kylecassidy: He got 23 photographers to agree to take pictures whenever he sent a text saying "take a picture now!" Here is his post announcing the website, and here is the website. And below the cut tag is the picture of mine that he selected.

( Read more... )

Just in case any of you have not been scarred for life touched by the beauty that is ( Mr. B. Natural... )