Out-of-Commission Dancing Queen

I don't usually wear heels, but both Friday and Saturday night this past weekend I strapped them SOBs on and danced my little booty off...and holy crap am I regretting thinking this was a good idea. As a result of this brilliant idea of mine to go out of my element ands squeeze my fat, wide feet into a pair of ho-gear heels, I have made two new friends! I am displeased to introduce:

Augustus



and Gloop




Yes, I named the two blisters on my pinky toes after the chubby, German kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (only one of my favorite Roald Dahl novels!). On top of just enjoying the name Augustus Gloop and my attempts at impersonating his accent with a mouth full of chocolate, I feel his gluttony and size perfectly personify my fragmented, chubby toes. And, yes, I posted pictures of my blistered toes on my blog. I think this coincides with my mantra of owning your ridiculousness.

Anyway, the bottom line is my feet + heels = pain. This is a fact I have known for quite sometime. But because of the special events I had going on this weekend including my birthday party and a fancy, family wedding I felt inclined to go against my better judgment...and now I'm paying for it. Back to the flip flops!

Karaoke, Baked Goods, and Thunderstorms

...in the words of Rufus Wainwright, "these are just a couple of my cravings". Baked goods cravings? Undeniable. Karaoke cravings? Inevitable (especially for me)! But thunderstorm cravings? Perhaps, this is questionable. Nonetheless, these three things have consumed much of my summer life to date.

Let's start with karaoke. I've done karaoke three times since I turned in my papers, and I have come to one major conclusion...karaoke is always better when done with a medium to small- sized group. This way you get to sing more. And anyone who has experienced the vocal stylings of Candice Haddad would agree that this is a good thing... not really. I actually am not that good, but honestly this is why smaller groups are better. Someone in your group always has to go, and if you go with nice people who also suck they don't care that you keep getting up there ruining anything from The Pixies to Queen to Whitney Houston. Don't get me completely wrong, I have experienced the large group dynamics of some karaoke bars to be a lot of fun. But I will say that the experience I had at Metro (a gay bar in Indy) a couple years ago kinda turned me off. The evening involved some pitchers of beer, a guy talking about his physic powers, and me waiting till the end of the night (thus, intaking much of that beer...eh) to sing "Bitch" by Meredith Brooks. Let's just say the only people clapping at the end were the two people I went with and me, but only bc I was still "keeping the beat" and didn't realize "Bitch" had ended. Oh, boy! Did it end. We left soon after I got off the stage...

Enough about my traumatic karaoke past, let's move on to baked goods -- specifically CUPCAKES! I have made three batches of cupcakes in the past month or so. And here they are:


Coconut Lime Cupcakes!


Vanilla Cupcakes with Blackberry and Raspberry toppings


Pineapple Right-Side Up Cupcakes

(Yes, each batch had a mini photo shoot. It's summer vaca! What else do you think I'm doing?)

Thanks to Caitlin, I was inspired to buy this vegan cupcake recipe book she flashed in front of my face over a month ago. A couple weeks later I bought it. And as I am sure you can tell, they have indeed taken over my world. The authors note that one of the reasons you should bake these vegan cupcakes is because they are blogworthy-- particularly more blogworthy than ranting about your love life. And I couldn't agree more! As you can see, I have not made any of the chocolate ones yet... who wants cupcakes?!?!

The last thing I want to mention about my summer life thus far is... you've guessed it! Thunderstorms! This shit has been crazy up here in Indiana, and I'm saying this even after the ridiculous hail storms that have been going on in Austin. Many parts of Indiana have experienced a ton of flooding. One of my most favorite places, Bloomington, was hit with major flooding:



And this is one of my favorite corners in Bloomington...the intersection of Kirkwood and Dunn! So crazy!

Another crazy picture I have is of the orange sky that appeared in the middle of one of the first storms that occurred a day or two after I came into town. Grover, the pug, was hesitant to go out...



I freaking love this stuff. It sucks when devastating things happen to communities, but monsoon rain, orange skies, crazy winds, and freakish lightening are so mesmerizing! It used to scare me shitless when I was young. If I had a quarter for every time my family mentions my Weather Channel addiction in elementary school, I wouldn't have any student loans to pay off (ha! right...). Seriously though, I want to be a tornado chaser when I grow up...

Chef Boyar My Momma

My Mom makes a mean carrot cake, and this proves it.

The article says she still gets requests, but she is retired. HA! Not for me...the perks of being Joyce Schneider's daughter.

Recovery

Ugh! I still feel like I am in recovery from this past school year. These past few weeks have been a challenge to feel situated. I feel like I went from going 150mph to abruptly pulling on the e-brake and coming to a complete halt. At first, the break was much needed, and the lack of academic responsibility ( or really having to do any type of work) was completely necessary and relieving, but now I am going a bit stir-crazy. Granted I realize there is not much I can do to get back into a steady routine till I'm back in Austin and my travels are over, I am in dire need of a break from my break. But who am I kidding? This hiatus of hardcore academic work has opened up the flood gates to get my life put back together in all the non-school arenas of my life -- socially, emotionally, physically. The problem is finding the energy and time to do it all post-semester when you brain has turned to Jello. Between friends visiting, packing and moving, wrapping up my assistantship, and preparing to tackle a thesis, I am needing a snap, slap, or kick back into a routine of some sort. Indeed, a creature of habit and stability I am and my root chakra is in dire need of some attention. As much as it kills me to admit it, my trip back to Indiana beginning in two days could not come soon enough.

Schlock

Schlock: noun, Sites of mass consumption often in the form of large cement (sometimes limestone or brick) blocks turned into outside shopping centers, indoor shopping malls, or stand-alone restaurants and stores found throughout the United States-- particularly in suburban areas. Yes, this is my own working definition, but I first heard this word come from my high school senior English Composition teacher, Mr. B (I'll let him remain somewhat anonymous). And it has stuck with me and been part of my vocabulary ever since. For your information, this is also the same teacher who threw a puppet parrot at me from across the room while I gave a speech in front of the class, but this is neither here nor there and is a story for another day. So, I bring up this term schlock now for I am hanging out in Dallas... enough said, right? If you aren't familiar with Dallas, let me explain a bit. Basically, you can find every imaginable chain store, restaurant, or whatever throughout the city (including the 'burbs) in many and multiple locations. Granted this is probably true for most large cities in the United States, there is just something that urks me about Dallas and its whole layout, vibe, population --basically its entire existence. And when I say Dallas I also want to include Fort Worth...oh do I want to include Fort Worth...

During this trip I went to Fort Worth for the first time to go to the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art. While I overall loved the museum and the art and the entire space and architecture of the building, my experience was a bit tainted during a moment when I looked out from a balcony towards a potentially beautiful view of the museum premises with the cityscape in the background to find a large construction site and a Wendy's billboard robbing this otherwise breathtaking site of any sliver of escapism. Perhaps, I am being too hasty to denounce any ability for there to be some kind of pleasure to be taken from seeing these signs of development and capitalistic endeavors to be enmeshed with modern art and architecture. The more I think about it the more I realize that my view from that balcony was a moment removed from doing exactly the same thing that I was doing immediately prior to and following. Standing in front of a piece of art to interact with it by judging it and looking for its "beauty" is in many ways similar to the position the architecture of the museum presented by having these spaces for reflection on the outside, (post)modern world to be enjoyed (arguably) from within its confines surrounded by modern art. In other words, the more I think about it the more I'm finding similarities between the often ironic beauty and intrigue I found in many of the pieces and the view of the museum compound being loomed over by the city and its schlock. Both sites --at least for me-- mix the ambivalent feelings invoked by escapism, social critique, cultural commentary, capitalism, etc. Truly, the more I think about it the more I sort of appreciate in a weird way that freckled, redhead's mug making her presence known.


(Note: I promise to wait to use the phrase "The more I think about it..." for at least a few more posts.)