OOPS OH NO

I lost track of time. ... well... I'm going to go eat lunch. Updates will happen.

transportation alternatives

So. Here is this picture. It's from the basement of the art building at Sarah Lawrence, in the animation studio. It's been there for years. I'm not sure what it's deal is, but I like the apple and the yellow crayon. And, of course, the bike.



I'm pretty sure it is this non-profit NYC organization, seeing as this sticker was in NY.

makers gotta make

It's very true.

Purple Pollen Place (protected by pretty petals)

I imagine tiny invisible fairies could live here, in a complex and sophisticated village.

The flowers were huge. I tried to stick my head in but I sneezed.

NUTRITIONAL YEAST! (and buckweat)

sooo much NOOT. and a little cayenne and soy sauce.

Vegan banana bread

As always, I did not follow the recipe. The ingredients intended were as followed:

The king of quick breads, banana bread is always a welcome treat at breakfast or tea time. While most banana bread recipes contain dairy and eggs, this vegan variation uses neither but is still moist and delicious. Feel free to add walnuts, raisins or dark dairy-free chocolate chips to dress up your bread!

Makes 1 9"x5" loaf
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes
Ingredients:

* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 3/4 cups white granulated sugar (I prefer unrefined cane sugar)
* 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
* 3/4 t. baking soda
* 3/4 t. salt
* 3/4 t. cinnamon
* 1/2 cup plain soy milk or almond milk
* 1 t. apple cider vinegar
* 2 cups mashed banana, from about 4 large very ripe bananas
* 1/4 cup canola oil
* 2 T. maple syrup
* 1 t. vanilla extract
* Walnuts (optional)

My Ingredients:

* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/8 cups white granulated sugar
* 3/4 t. baking soda
* 2/4 t. salt
* 1/8 t. allspice
* some amount plain soy milk (I don't remember if I paid attention)
* some mashed banana, from my mother's over ripe bananas (I never buy bananas for ethical reasons.)
* 1/4 cup light olive oil
* some dribbles of molasses (yay)
* 1 capful vanilla extract
* Handful of Walnuts
* Handful ground flax seed (to hold it together since I'm not using eggs)


My logic was that things are always too sweet, and molasses and bananas are already sweet.

---

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Lightly oil a 9"x5" loaf pan and set aside.

2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugars, baking soda, salt spice, and flax.

3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the soy milk and olive oil. Add the mashed banana, molasses, and vanilla extract, whisking until well combined. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, adding slowly so it doesn't clump. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and forget the walnuts until last minute (alternately you could do that earlier). Bake for about 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the center emerges clean. Allow the bread to cool on a wire cooling rack for 20 minutes before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature.
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I'm making it vegan because my friend Christine is awesome and it would be fin to share it with her. It's still in the oven. If it turns out badly I will update this post.

Edit: I made it again. I added 1 teaspoon of baking powder to the dry mixture. then I forgot to mix in about a half cup of the dry mixture, give or take a bit. I could math at it to re figure the numbers. Any how it turned out perfect. The first time it was pretty gooey and dense.

Breath of fresh air

I have a lot of faith in myself right now. Things have been really hard, and they aren't suddenly going to be easy breezy, but they might be a little easier. And I might go enjoy the breeze, have a little peace, and feel more able to breath. I love where I live, my life is objectively amazing, and astoundingly amazing.



And I need to be in a place where I don't have to struggle so much to enjoy it. I always appreciate it, of course. I don't appreciate my depression but I'm working through it. I made a change this week, to focus more on myself and take it into my own hands to be strong and compassionate and happy. And now I feel like I can breath. And I think I am determined enough to follow through and not remain stagnant.

My next step is to figure out how I am paying for things. I need a budget that includes rent, food, and my gym. hopefully even some dancing and public transit. I have faith that it will work out but I have to come up with a how or else I'll be a little, um, dissapointed in myself I suppose.

Missing Spoons

Apparently some people I know in Massachusetts use the phrase of "having spoons" as a metaphor for having the personal resources to cope with life.

This makes it pretty funny that my favorite spoon went missing more than a year ago. I've been aquireing spoons, hoping to find the one that fits my life. Someday I will find it.

But there does seem to be a correlation between having more spoons and doing better. as (t) increases, spoons and ability to cope both increase.

Doing art alone is really lonely.

These pictures are from Sarah Lawrence in NY, this fall semester before I up and left.



I actually don't know why I took a picture of these chicken strips. It's a mystery. Fun fact though: the food service workers liked me because I (and a handful of others) spent a lot of my time trying to protect them: getting them a union, health insurance, better pay, better treatment in the work place; ie not getting physically and verbally assaulted.... so they all gave me free food. I didn't have a meal plan at all. I'm facebook friends with the worker who always gave me these chicken strips.


The animation room was depressing, to the point that no one would keep me company in there. Not even Wilson, whose other option was the depressing basement that we live in. but at least it had a better couch?


And animation is really time consuming. At least Fiona sort of kept me company. :)

P.S. I never finished this project. But the half finished version is on youtube.

no post sorry.

We'll both live. My life is temporarily offline for reconstruction? Maybe tomorrow will be better. Maybe the next day will be even better. I suspect I will have a post for you on Saturday.

Contra Dancing

Folk Life


I don't remember how many contra dancers there were. So many. Contra dancing all day for four days, with awesome people from all over the country.

I don't have much to say about this. My cat is being cute in front of me. There is Berkeley Contra Dance tomorrow. Not as many people, but still wonderful, and less of a drive.

pancake recipe

This morning I made pancakes. I didn't take a picture cause there was nothing visually interesting going on.

I looked up a recipe and proceeded to not follow it at all. That's just my style. The recipe I looked up was as follows:

Protein Pancakes:
* 1/2 Cup Old Fashioned Oats (not instant)
* 4 egg whites
* 1/2 tsp baking powder
* 1/4 tsp salt
* Dash of cinnamon (optional)

I did:
* 1/2 Cup Baby Oats Like instant
* 2 large eggs
* some amount of bisquik, because I don't know why I have it, but it's made of flour and leavening. maybe 1/4 cup.
* capful of vanilla
* Some amount of molasses
* some sugar (not much)
* a little milk
* some milled flax seed. less than 1/4 cup
* maybe something else but I think that was it.

They were really good. And it felt like I was eating real food. I recommend them.

Cupcake Manor

This is the crazy house I stayed at while going to Folk Life in Seattle. It has some number of stories, maybe three? There are two kitchens and two living rooms. The topmost floor has a bathroom in the middle of the space with walls made of transluscent cubes, and one of the tiles in the shower is painted to be a half face of a man... looking at you. Between when I was there last year, and this year, someone taped up what I think is a Halloween picnic table cloth. The material is just covered in bats and makes the walls more opaque. Now there is a sign on the door that says "Bat room," by nature of some having put white out over the "h."

I really like this house.

my week has different days than your week.

Obviously.



My Emily is coming home again today. Is everyone's blog an "I love Emily blog"? because they should be. She is pretty awesome. I swear though, she has pretty much the most well documented life, next to that guy from the truman show if that movie were real.

craziness

There seems to be a bug with blogger, making my pictures too big and then cutting them off. I don't have time to fix it right now. you can always click the picture to see it whole. I don't think this problem exists in the rss feeds.

Kevin in Portland

This is the dude whose house I ended up staying mostly at for the weekend, as my back was in a lot of pain. He is good company, and, as you can imagine from this picture, has a great laugh.



Here we were sitting by a bike path (where it was closed due to flooding), watching people zoom towards to fence, stop, and turn around. One after another.

(also hey look, I made a shnazzy watermark-y thing for my pictures!)

oh right it's tuesday.

Sorry y'all.

Um. I rename tomorrow to be tuesday until I make a post. And then it can be wednesday again.

<3,
Mack

Sunflower eyes

Still in Portland but I am leaving tomorrow. I've been staying with a man with sunflower eyes. I haven't seen eyes like that in a long time. He is beautiful, and named Kevin. Yay People. :)

This is a lazy post, as I haven't dealt with getting pictures off of my camera yet. The picture above is one a took a while ago. But it still feels right; the same breath of fresh air you get from looking into the beautiful and friendly eyes of a good friend.

One of the prints I made. Apple.

I think I titled it "Barbed Apple" just by default of labeling it that.



I like having made prints but I don't know what to do with them. I want to make more but it is expensive. I need to make other art, and sell it. To fund further art making.

I love you all. All my readers. I've no idea. Maybe 13 of you? Tops?
But I wont have posts about this trip until I get home. for a few reasons. from lowest to highest relevancy.

one: Everyone has work or school during the day. And I'm not much of a city person. So if I have access to a computer it isn't because I have infinite library time, it is because I've gotten someone to let me hang out at their house the whole time they are out.

two: my hard drive doesn't work on windows thingys. And I have, like other things to do online. Like forget what I was doing.

three: I haven't bothered to get my own cable to my camera, so I can't get the pictures off it without the right cord (which is a pretty standard one) or a card reader/other camera and cable, which many people have. But since either everyone is gone, or we are out dancing, I haven't had much opportunity to obtain these. I feel really disappointed in myself about this.

But I think all thirteen of you can handle the suspense.