Bloomington: A direct result of living in a culture that ingests too much sodium is that my sugar tolerance is not so high

oh sweet mother of Baldr what have we done

Bloomington: Suckas.png

I am never going outside again because everything is awful.

It's 41 degrees outside (5 degrees if you're a Celsius type) and has been raining for two days, and I'm starting to feel like a Californian.

I've never liked identifying as a Californian before, because California is a big place, and San Francisco is a weird, tiny place, and I can only ride buses and therefore can't really do much in the southern half of the state.

Perhaps I have been hasty.

Yesterday, I went outside. It was cold and wet and dry and horrid, and I shivered from inside my sweater/sweatshirt/gloves/boots until I overheated completely over the course of about fifteen minutes. By the time I got to a bus, I was sweating. I let my fingers freeze in a desperate attempt to cool the rest of me down, but two stinging hands later, I was still simmering and trying to avoid any extra movement.

The way home was much more action-packed, and after a successful run for my return bus, I found myself not only out of breath, but coughing for a good fifteen minutes from the cold air. I didn't start yelling about how it was consumption, and that was another struggle.

The diagnosis: I'm a Californian. I can run from it all I want, but my lungs know what my heart will not admit. Cough cough.

The file name for this is "suckas.png." Sometimes my plans backfire.

Not pictured: "Thomas Kinkade was here" graffiti.

I think everyone has pretty much picked up on this fact; we went with a faculty member to a state park in scenic Lawrence County, home of some astronauts or something, and comparisons to Muir Woods may have made the husband and I seem like snobs. Fine. So mote it be. Frankly, I don't know if I care much about what the staff of Spring Mill State Park think about me, because they sell boxes with the Confederate flag on them, and I will not be supporting them at any point in the future.

But some things are consistent from state to state; food exists in Indiana very similarly, if not identically, to how it exists in California, and I still want it. All of it. Now.

And so, with the help of my husband, the alter ego of We-Can-Just-Improvise Man, exciting things have happened on the edibility front.

1. Round foods have been attempted.

We tried to take down doughnuts and bagels in one day, and in doing so created rapidly expanding, deep-fried things that were delicious and tasted vaguely like doughnuts after we rolled them in sugar. There was much rejoicing. I needed them pretty badly, too, since I finished StarCraft II that day and emotional support in the form of sugar was extremely necessary.

(On that note, I wish they had kept Glynnis Talken as Kerrigan's voice, because I have no problem with Tricia Helfer and all, but I do have problems with Change, and I don't know. I didn't think she did the job EXACTLY THE SAME as Glynnis Talken, and it made me sad because I waited twelve years for this thing yo.)

But the bagels were disintegrated.

After the doughnuts, we had exciting bagel times, and managed to actually make bagels that looked like bagels. And tasted like bagels. And were amazing... like bagels.

They lasted about a day. And then they were gone.

What was my point? Oh, yes. Bagels are delicious and if you put a little canola oil in oatmeal with cinnamon and apples, it tastes a little doughnut-y anyway, so yeah, it's delicious.

2. Pizza and dessert are not mutually exclusive.

It's pretty easy. You just roll out enough crust dough to cover a baking sheet, grab a little extra to create a barrier between the pizza part and the dessert part, throw pizza stuff on one part, and break up a candy bar on the other part. When you take it out of the oven, you throw peanut butter on the candy and stick it back in the oven and take it out again five minutes later.

Then, you take a moment to smell the pizza. And it is a beautiful thing.

End food section. Begin TV section. Why were Downton Abbey, Doc Martin, and America's Next Top Model so depressing this week? And why did this have to be the week where all the NBC shows were on break? Aiya.

Open Letter: To Giants fans who ride MUNI and BART

Dear you guys,

It's not what you think.

I know it's been a while. I know that usually I greet you with glares and scowls and am not very nice to you when you're yelling a lot on buses that I get stuck riding on game days. I know that when I left, we were not on the best of terms, because MUNI and BART were places of peace for me, and if I couldn't get my afternoon nap as I took my L car home from Berkeley every once in a while, I was quite a grumpy Gus.

I miss you.

On the one hand, I miss you because you were on streetcars, ergo streetcars existed. Holy mother of Baldr, I miss streetcars. I miss my smooth (well...) rides through the tunnels and around the curves at West Portal and down Taraval all the way to home.

But it's more than that. I miss you.

It's the impossible, I know: me, missing seasonal loud, orange herds on the MUNI? Who even am I anymore? But I do!

We didn't always have very much in common, you guys and me, or at least not while you were caught up in the spirit of Finland's national sport (seriously, it's baseball). But there was one thing we had in common: San Francisco.

You love her. I know you do. And so do I.

The sports here are college sports. Everyone wears red and white--I'm sorry, cream and crimson--and then the cars block up the streets between us and the grocery store, and college kids yell a lot and barbecue stuff, and frankly, I don't trust them with fire.

Look, this is hard for me to admit, but it really does feel wrong, the red and white thing. I'm not even sure what the Indianapolis baseball team is called. (Unless it's the Colts, in which case, I totally know it, but I thought that was football or something, and I can't keep ALL the sports straight. Like I said, this is difficult enough as it is.)

So while I'm apologizing, I've got a few more to get off my chest. About you guys, I mean.

• I'm sorry for all the times I said I was a Yankees fan just to make Giants fans angry. 
• I'm sorry for the times I was all "but why wouldn't you want to root for winners instead?" to Giants fans, because I know you guys won the World Cup or something last year (or something). 
• I'm sorry for the time I called it the World Cup in my last apology. I know very well that it's the Super Cup.
• Sorry. I know. World Series. Couldn't be helped.
• I'm sorry I pulled my hood over my head and slouched over like a zombie person in my seat to try and scare you. I'm pretty sure no one bought it.

Let us never speak of this again.

xoxo
Adriane

Bloomington: Unemployment is my favorite kind of employment

That's not entirely true, nor am I entirely unemployed, because I have friends who let me do little telecommuting things every once in a while, hallelujah! and so I can do SOMEthing to keep my mind from turning into a jellyfish (although how cool would it be to be all "you guys, I've got nothin but a neural net! Suck on THAT!").

Anyway, working is good, money is good, thinking is good. But I am, as my mother would (and often has) put it, a bit contrary at times, so I've also done as much as possible to move my brain in a mush-like direction, or at least to keep it fat and happy, as it were.

No one thinks you're clever, Apocalypse.

I've spent a lot of time on Instant Netflix, which you probably already knew or could have guessed. After finishing The Cosby Show, I began to watch the 90s X-Men cartoon from beginning to end, because aside from the first episode, which my brother and I can basically recite from beginning to end and a lot of Storm battle cries and Jean Gray actual cries, I don't remember that many specifics.

The specifics, as it turns out, all point to one conclusion: X-Men was a weird cartoon.

Not that this is a bad thing! There's a lot of good, hearty dark stuff thrown in there, a lot of salient plot points that I didn't think they'd actually put into the cartoon from the comics. Plus, of course, Jubilee's voice actor was Loonette the Clown on Big Comfy Couch, so ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.

MARY JANE THINKS YOU'RE A LOOOSERRRR

But good, hearty dark stuff can just get so dark, and so I've sort of drifted away from X-Men for the time being. I tried moving on to the 90s Spider-Man cartoon, which I remember as being absolutely hilarious.

And sometimes, it is. But by the last season, it's just as depressing as X-Men, but with more of a focus on Peter Parker's internal angst. And guess which season I started with?

(I brought this upon myself. I should have known that Peter wouldn't be talking to his gargoyle friend Bruce in the Hydro-Man episodes. Stupid Hydro-Man episodes. Even my mom gets creeped out by the Hydro-Man episodes.)

Oh, hey, Hank is being judgmental, try to act surprised.

So I gave up on that, too. I tried to remember what other things I actually used to do with my time during the summer, and I remembered that Royal Pains exists (in spite of its blatant disregard for how thoroughly they developed the sexual tension between Divya and Evan in the first season, because apparently overarching plot lines and relationships on summer shows mean absolutely nothing these days). So I watched the entire summer season in two days and it oozed in and out of my brain very quickly, if we're going to get all graphic about it.

I dabbled in some other shows, most of which I've seen before. Psych, for example. NewsRadio, of which I never tire. I watched that movie You Again, which needed a million times more Betty White to be remotely worth the time I spent on it. Whatever.

But, dear readers, a ray of sunshine: TV is back.

Oh, hey, Martin is being judgmental, try to act surprised.

Or it's starting to come back, anyway. Doc Martin is back, REJOICE! It only ever lasts for what, eight episodes a season? But no one cares, because every episode is beautiful. Doc Martin is a perfect show. My heart broke and mended itself like... twice or something over the course of the first episode, in the best possible way. Everything else can suck it. And when does Lost come back? Just kidding, I'll never allow my heart to belong to any other TV show again, because they all end. Doc Martin is the last one. Ever. Full stop. If it ever ends, I'll probably go back to reading books; that's how much I hate the emotional ups and downs of the capricious world of television. No more shows.

Oh, except for one.

I don't quite know what to say about this.

America's Next Top Model has returned for its seventeenth cycle, apparently an All-Star cycle, and while the first episode was relatively lackluster considering what it could have been with so many past crazy diva types on it, I have high hopes. Between Lisa who peed in a diaper in cycle 5, Bianca who implored Saleisha to "check her thighs out in the mirror" in cycle 9, and Camille from the second cycle whose signature walk was supposed to make her famous, among other, ah... personalities, this cycle can't be anything less than ridiculous. And so, Top Model, you have my attention, which is, I think, exactly what you wanted, n'est-ce pas?

That concludes my TV adventures. I've also been playing video games; 1993's Eagle Eye Mysteries in London and the fourth edition or something of Oregon Trail are teaching me all the things I've forgotten since I last played them each a decade or so ago. Bless.

Eagle Eye Mysteries taught me that Hans Holbein was Henry VIII's court painter, and the British Museum is awesome.

Oregon Trail taught me that some people have too much time on their hands...

...and that some pioneers look like Robert Louis Stevenson.

In conclusion, you should all watch NewsRadio.

Bloomington: Attitude meets altitude

Don't start with me.

I'm trying to reregulate my sleep schedule, which has taken a turn for the worse since my husband started work. Currently, the pair of us wake up at 7, he goes to work at 8, and I go back to bed. Yesterday I spent 12 hours asleep total, and so here I am, blogging at 8:30 in the morning because I'm too tired to do anything else.

Wait no I mean stay on this page it's going to be full of quality.

Anyway, have I mentioned that Bloomington is flat?

It's hard to take pictures when there's so much sky.

I think I spent a lot of my childhood aware of the fact that San Francisco was full of hills. From the time I learned to walk, this was never in question. What I failed to understand was that other places are not the same as San Francisco. As you've seen thus far, my journey toward a full understanding of this has caused me considerable confusion, and I'm still not quite sure why anyone bothers to build cities where there is no ocean, for without ocean, there is no ocean, and will someone please explain to me why this happens but that is neither here nor there. I do miss the ocean. Every day.

Hills, on the other hand... I can live without 'em.

Aww, but just look how happy they are.

Or so I thought. At first, my legs were grateful for the break, especially with the amount of walking that must be done when I don't feel like paying bus fares (which is all the time. Hurrah, unemployment). Now, though, I am sitting and watching them jitter up and down on the adjacent chair, as if they think they're going anywhere today. The joke's on them, because no. I am tired and my exploding head syndrome has been acting up and I am sick of it. Adriane OUT.

P.S. This post was going to have lots of pretty food pictures but NO YOU HAVE TO WAIT I AM TOO TIRED.

P.P.S. I AM AN ADULT AND I CAN CAPS LOCK IF I WANT

P.P.P.S. xoxo

P.P.P.P.S. which reminds me, Top Model comes back next Wednesday! TEAM SHEENA 4LYFE!

Bloomington: Season 2, Ep. 11

There's one other thing that I've learned from sitting around the house and avoiding the 90+ degree weather, and that is that Mojovision was a really weird episode.

Ummmmm kay.

Bloomington: Pictures of food and run-on sentences

"There was a dead cockroach in my office today." -my husband, in the middle of dinner


As we've heretofore explored, Bloomington is a place of rural charms, of American dreams and chirping crickets (seriously, WHEN DO THEY STOP??), and I am thrilled to be the first San Franciscan to ever be here for any other reason than school (I'm assuming. I've tried very hard, but can't think of another feasible reason for moving from San Francisco to pretty much anywhere in the Midwest besides Chicago, in all seriousness), because it means I get to chronicle the town from outside of the university.

The only football stadium you can see from space.

I use the term "outside" loosely, as the university campus takes up about a seventh of Bloomington's land area, and the rest of the town mostly exists to feed off of students' (and/or their parents') hard-earned (or whatever, no judgment here) cash. But I do live near the International Food Mart (where International may here be read as Asian, which serves my mochi needs just fine, thank you), so I consider myself one of the worldlier residents of Bloomington, even if my apartment complex has the word "campus" in it.

Also, I lived in Berkeley, so yes, I am going to pass judgment on all y'all's farmers' markets. Shortly.

Anyway, living in a place so dominated by its university has weird moments, like when you're in the far northwest corner of town and you turn around... only to see that the stadium looms just as large as it does when you're standing right in front of it.

(My husband points out that UC Berkeley's football stadium actually holds more people than Indiana's, but I lived adjacent to the Berkeley campus and never once saw the football stadium. Protip: the real difference is hills. Where ARE they??)

It's the kind of thing that drives me to homesickness, which, in turn, drives me to seek out things that I never thought I missed. I've been to one farmer's market in my life, and yes, it was magical, and I bought some lovely parsley and a CD from a very legit opera singer. I get about two points of street cred for that, right?

I hope so, because I'm trading each one of those hard-earned street cred points for two bullet points that make up a list of things I never thought I'd see at a farmers' market:

• People selling sausage
• Tables of Republicans

No one was even almost yelling. Are we sure there were politics involved?

Free green apple popcorn is still weird, though.

But there are some distinct upsides to living in a college town. Almost all of them involve the free food that the Student Union gives out indiscriminately just before the school year starts.

On the free food day in question, I started out feeling slightly guilty whenever I went back to get seconds on free food, but then realized that I could mitigate said guilt by lingering by the tables I liked until they offered the food to me themselves. The greatest trick the Devil played on mankind was convincing them he hadn't already been to their free food booths, as the saying may or may not go.

I didn't even want pickles. What is my problem?

Also, perks to being a faculty wife: orientation-type dinners where everyone ignores you and it makes you feel like you want to make some kind of dreadful power play and the voices say "yes, cause a scene, don't let them ever forget you AGAIN" and you try and suppress it because you're used to blending in, you've worked in tech, no big deal, but oh no, there is no power here and you MUST HAVE THE POWER and you drink your lemonade at a feverish pace, trying to drown out the murderous thoughts in your mind and then oh hey never mind I think I see the hummus