Bloomington: Employment

ugh you guys I like making money and all but I want my commute to change to a teleportation thing

these are actually delicious though

San Francisco: "I'd rather be dead in California than alive in Arizona"

...or, for that matter, most other places. (I'm not going to Arizona. I promise.)

I've spent a lot of the last week yelling "BUILDIIINGS!"

As this winter vacation wraps up and I have to ship myself back to what I am refusing to call home (we're going with "base camp" instead), I've learned that I have a lot to learn about human nature. When I moved to Indiana from Berkeley via Finland four months ago, I looked at it as a time to observe people I didn't know, and I did that. I've met people who are honestly content in the Midwest, who don't like the idea of a city, who say "howdy" to passers-by. Naturally, these people are not all the same, or whatever. But there's still a lot I don't understand, and maybe this time, I can dig a little deeper.

Dear beach, stop being prettier than me.

The first thing of note that we did when we got to San Francisco two Thursdays ago was take buses, which was exceptional. The next morning, we did Cool Thing #2: stand in a freezing cold ocean until our skins had absorbed all the saltwater they were missing from the Midwest's lack of sea breezes. (Is this already a medical condition? If not, may I suggest "Adriane Syndrome?" I googled it. It's not a thing yet.) This brings me to my first question: how do people survive away from an ocean? And I know I've asked that before, and it's been all over my photo albums on Facebook, but I still don't understand. Why would you build something away from a substantial body of water? Would you do so voluntarily? I remember watching the episode of Arthur where the Read family goes to the beach as a small, obnoxious child, and not quite understanding what the fuss was. Clearly, the beach was about four blocks away, and not really worth a stressful road trip with an inflatable shark stuck to the roof.

That, though, is something I have been forced to understand. I just traced a path on Google Maps from our base camp in Bloomington to what I think is the nearest beach, in... I don't know, it looks like Maryland. It would take 12 hours and 53 minutes to drive all 719 miles, and you still would be on the Chesapeake Bay rather than on the proper ocean. I have no idea what that all means, except that I can't walk down a hill and stick my feet in the foamsplosion.

We almost decided to live in the rocks but no.

My legs are acting like they've completely atrophied since leaving hill country for the flatlands. I used to use "flatlander" as an insult, completely unrelated to people who don't live in places with hills and mountains and things and, instead, as a reference to some video on Youtube that has nothing to do with cats. Now, I understand that this has nothing to do with coasts and everything to do with the fact that San Francisco is annoying and can't pick an altitude. But I feel like there's actually blood moving through my head right now, and it's kind of exhilarating. Like I have a circulatory system. And lungs. And all that nice stuff. So how do flatlanders keep their blood from coagulating in their veins? I have no idea.

Anyway. Was there something else? Oh yes. Why would you live somewhere without ostentatious landmarks and Robin Williams' house? Granted, Meg Cabot has a barn in Bloomington. That's kind of cool. I didn't read the last buttload of Princess Diaries books, but I liked the first three, at least.

And why isn't anything painted International Orange?

And how do you properly celebrate holidays without a balloon menorah on every corner?

And how much time did I spend on this, anyway?

Bloomington: Shameless self-promotion

As a reader of my blog, I'm assuming that you are a person who personally loves to watch me fail publicly and mock me afterward because I'm so blisteringly arrogant most of the time.

Today, my friend, is your day!

Tonight at 10pm-midnight Pacific Time (1-3am where I am), I'll be starting my weekly music show on local community awesomesauce radio station WFHB, which you can listen to by either being in Bloomington, Ellettsville, Nashville, or THE INTERNET. Yes, my hateful pals, you can go straight on to wfhb.org and listen to me streamin' live!

You don't have to, it's cool, but I feel like I should let you know just in case you're stalking me or something. It's gonna be cool. And I'm not going to just play Stadium Arcadium on a loop for two hours, no matter how tempting it is.

And Jennifer, if you're reading this, I promise I'm going to send you my list soon; today is the end of two very hectic things, and as soon as they're over, I will have a second to breathe. PROMISSSSE <3

Bloomington: Winter is the new summer

By that, of course, I mean that it has become my new vote for Most Bizarro Season.

The trouble with living near college students is
that the cocaine just piles up outside.

I know, I know: this is how it's supposed to be. Highs in the forties, lows in the twenties, snow, rain, wind. Personally, I've never dealt with lows in the low forties for any extended period of time, and at this point, I'm bundling up in eleven pairs of socks just to get the mail, because socks are the only clothes I have in excess, as it turns out. (I got to read the 7-day forecast on the radio on Sunday. It brought a tear to my eye, but since that tear didn't land on a mixing board and electrocute me, I will have to forever live with that shame.)

All this is to say that oops, it's been a long time since I updated my blog, and I blame the fact that my fingers are half-frozen and not up to doing much more than hitting the play button on Hulu. I hope you're buying it.

Speaking of which, I'm finally reaching that stage in my TV-watching cycle where I'm out of things I want to watch. I finished Doctor Who again, The Office really isn't that good anymore, Community's getting shelved, Doc Martin is probably over forever (SUCH A GOOD FINALE, have we talked about this?), Downton Abbey's season finale was the most depressing thing, and I keep trying to watch Once Upon a Time but I strongly dislike the faces of two of the lead people and really I only keep watching for Raphael Sbarge and the hidden Apollo Bars and things. My task for you, dear readers I don't have anymore: give me your Instant Netflix picks. Right now. Skip the rest of the post, go to the comments section. It's not going to get any better.

And he was delicious.

For those of you who disregarded my instructions and continued to read anyway, GO YOU! You get a list of foods that the husband and I have tried to make lately.

• Toaster Strudels (Boston Creme. Delicious, but my frosting decoration looked vaguely... cave art-ish).
• Carrot casserole (because we don't like getting repeat invitations to Thanksgivings).
• Vegetables au gratin (made up that word. Anyway, it was good stuff the first day, but there's only so much broccoli in cream you can handle, you know).
• Gingerbread without ginger (presented without further comment).
• Limited Edition Sugar Cookie Pop-Tarts (buy them now and eat them toasted and you can thank me later).

 Hi. Anyway. Instant Netflix, please? Or Hulu? Or whatever? I love rewatching Arrested Development as much as the next person who loves rewatching Arrested Development, but I can't keep this up much longer.

Did I forget to mention that I'm not above hypocrisy when Maura Tierney is involved?

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