NaNoWriMo

If you've noticed that Owl and I have been even more radio-silency than normal, that's because of those four small syllables up top.

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is a marathon writing event that takes place every November. Participants are challenged to write 50,000 in 30 days. Traditionally these 50,000 will all be part of one original novel, but not everybody does this. Owl, for instance, is working on two separate projects for NaNo. I'm writing a fictional bestiary (based off of drawings for Inktober, a similar challenge where participants draw an ink drawing for each day in October), which, although it has an underlying subplot, isn't really a novel per se. Some people write fanfiction, biographies, or a series of essays. The important thing is that we are all writing.

50,000 in 30 days sounds like a lot, but the reality is that this generally produces a fairly small novel. And few people really have a completed novel at the end of the month. However, as one of the prizes for winners (anybody who completes the challenge), the official NaNoWriMo organization offers a free print copy of your work, and several months to edit and format before submitting a copy for printing. I have a burning need to display a reference guide to fantastical monsters that I made up on my bookshelves with my name on it, so that's my goal for the month. 50,000 words. They don't have to be good. They don't even have to be spelled right. That's what editing is for. But they have to be there.

With that in mind, I am welcoming you all to challenge Owl and I. (Yes, Owl, I'm volunteering you for this as well.) It's a NaNo tradition for writers to challenge one another with dares, word wars, and other madness. A dare can be anything---write a whole paragraph without using the letter e, or an old NaNo favorite, write a scene that includes the "traveling shovel of death". A word war is basically a contest between two or more writers to see who can reach a certain word goal first. Crawls and sprints are among my favorite NaNo challenges. A sprint is pretty much what it sounds like. You write for a certain amount of time without interruptions---no Internet, no phone, no coffee breaks, no editing or second-guessing your word choice. You write constantly, and you write as much as you can, until you reach the finish line. Crawls are my personal favorite though. A word crawl walks you through a set of criteria, and presents you with a series of mini-challenges to be done in sequence. Take, for instance, the bookshelf world crawl Owl and I held at our apartment for a group of friends earlier this week. It began by asking participants to count the number of bookshelves in their home and multiplying it by 100. We have 8 bookshelves, so we wrote 800 words each. To make it more challenging, we made it a word war, so the first to 800 "won" (bragging rights), and we added a dare---a character must, in those 800 words, find a dusty box in an attic. (And, since I have bragging rights: I won! 800 words in 9.56 minutes. And I even spelled some words correctly.) The second leg of the crawl had us pick a shelf and count how many different book series we had on that shelf. Now, this challenge was made somewhat complicated due to the fact that Owl and I have begun to pack up our books for our eminent move, so we only had about 3 shelves worth of books left out, scattered around the 8 shelves. So we cheated a bit, and picked the shelf with all of my Terry Pratchett, which I couldn't bear to put away in boxes just yet, and counted each of his subseries (the City Watch books, the Witches books, etc). Eventually we decided on saying we had 7 distinct series, and according to the rules, multiplied that by 50. So we had a fairly easy stroll to 350 words, and moved on to the third leg, which included the option for one of my favorite challenges, the Fifty Headed Hydra. The Fifty Headed Hydra is a word sprint where the goal is to write 500 words in 5 minutes, so named by the famed creator of the Hydra. According to NaNo legend the first Hydra was successful, but of the 500 words, only three were spelled correctly: "fifty", "headed", and "hydra". (I want to read that novel.) The crawl continues in this fashion, and at the end of it I had doubled my total word count, though it took Owl and I three days to properly complete it. We next have our sights set on the Pokemon Gym Challenge, which we're hoping to start today, and which we are very excited for.

So, if you would like to challenge us to a dare, a sprint, a crawl, or whatever you want, please do! We could both use the help, and they're all a lot of fun.

You can find the forum dedicated to NaNo prompts, word wars, sprints, and crawls here, and some unofficial dares here, here, here, and here, or you can give us your own! (BP= bonus points, DBP= double bonus points, TBP= triple bonus points, etc. The points are Internet points and they can be redeemed for warm fuzzy feelings of pride.)

Now, I am behind on my word count, so I will leave this here. (And I'm only planning on counting this blog post towards my total word goal if I'm really desperate at the end of the month...) This will likely be the only blog post for November, so treasure it, or something. I'll be back in December to finish the harrowing (and now outdated) tale of my Mayo Clinic adventures.

Happy noveling, everybody. Give us challenges, and we will do our best to complete them!

Cheers,
Raven

The Mayo Adventure, part 1

As promised, I wrote about my trip to the Mayo Clinic at the beginning of September. It's a looong post, so it's getting broken up into several parts. 

The Trip to Rochester

Our Mayo Clinic adventure started out auspiciously. The trip from my apartment to Rochester, MN is, theoretically, a little over three hours. My mom set out early from Chicago to pick me up and we continued the journey, through Wisconsin countryside that always surprises me in its beauty. We crossed over the mighty Mississippi river and drove past the town where my father grew up, and it was a serene, interesting drive. Even stopping for lunch halfway through we made it to Rochester in good time, tired after the drive (her more than me, since she did all the driving!) but in good spirits. We navigated through Rochester with relative ease, until we came to a quaint house in a quiet subdivision---our castle for the next week.

The House

The house was one we rented through AirBnB, and it was gorgeous. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer place to come back to, and as our stay drew on, we became ever more grateful for the peaceful space to decompress. One of the co-owners met us as we drove up to his property. An overwhelmingly polite Midwestern man, he told us that he had been a pilot for most of his life, doing emergency flights to and from the Mayo Clinic. After one too many winters flying to Fargo in the middle of the night during a blizzard, he decided he’d had enough of the airborne life, and took a job at Mayo in their aerospace division, where he helped facilitate health screenings and care for pilots. He told us that his partner and co-owner was a pilot as well, laughing slightly as he did so, presumably at the improbability of two pilots settling down in a quiet town in Minnesota and opening a(n Air)BnB together. He gave us a thorough tour of the house, which offered more than enough space for the two of us. The kitchen was well-equipped for basic (and not-so-basic) cooking, the unit came with a fancy “smart” washer and dryer, and the ground floor bedroom had, across from it, a small room with a TV and a recliner. He told us that many people who stayed with him were in town for the same reason we were, and many of them were older, often with mobility issues, and the recliner provided an option for those who couldn’t sleep supine. For me, the room was a perfect “insomnia room”---insomniacs are often advised not to spend any more time than necessary in their bedroom. If they’re not sleeping, they should be elsewhere, so that the only association with their bedroom was sleep. The room across the hall presented itself as an ideal haven for my sleepless nights, though I was hoping (optimistically as it turned out) that I wouldn’t have much trouble in that regard.

The house had a cozy living room, with a Smart TV that offered more features than I really felt was necessary in a TV, but that I naturally explored right away. The living room was stocked with basic board games and a variety of delightfully nerdy BlueRay discs, including the entire series of The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Indiana Jones, earning the owners my instant approval. The house was decorated beautifully, complimenting earthy tones with splashes of color, and giving many of the rooms individual themes---aviation, for my bedroom, Parisian art for my mother’s, and for the insomnia room, retro-style comic book art, done by a friend of the owners. They even provided a welcome gift bag for us, full of instant oatmeal, fruit snacks, crackers, and water bottles, all of which proved highly useful during the long days at Mayo. We settled in, and made a grocery run, driving by the clinic so we would know exactly where it was we were going the next day, for our 7:30am appointment. Tired, we went to sleep early, but neither of us slept well---in what would turn out to be the theme of the week.

The Clinic

The Mayo Clinic itself is an immense facility, spread over several buildings, the largest of which is 21 stories tall with rounded sides extending up its 93 meters. It towers over an idyllic courtyard, across from which is an open air mall/restaurant strip that leads into the University of Minnesota-Rochester shopping area. The two major buildings, Gonda and Mayo, are connected to one another in an awkward fusion that facilitates moving between different departments in different buildings, but has the effect of making it look from the outside like the taller, sleeker Gonda is eating the shorter, squarer Mayo.

The inside of the Gonda and Mayo buildings, where we spent all of our time, was clearly designed with serenity and tranquility in mind. The main level has a long, marble and glass passageway, populated by the coffee and gift shop, the cafeteria, rows of comfortable couches and end tables, and a grand piano that was nearly always in use, occasionally with choral accompaniment. Each wing of the Gonda/Mayo amalgamation was home to one or two individual departments. We spent most of our time traveling between GI (Mayo 12), Neurology (Mayo 8) and the Sleep Clinic (Gonda 17), which meant we learned the layout of the buildings pretty quickly. The departments were equipped with large, often quite full, waiting areas, and we soon learned why. As it turns out it was not at all unusual for patients to spend six hours a day in the waiting room of a particular department, their names on a list to get an appointment should another patient not show up for theirs. We had our own share of waiting, but more on that later. The waiting rooms in the Gonda building were more impressive than those in Mayo. The huge glass walls presented a stunning panoramic view of Rochester and the hills and valleys in the distance. The room itself was full of plush couches, convenient end tables, walls full of pamphlets for patients to read (How To Cope with Chronic Pain; Caring for a Loved One with Chronic Illness; Tips for Managing Stress…and so on) and a row of computers where patients could log onto their Mayo Clinic patient profile to check their appointment schedules and message their doctors. The Sleep Clinic was equipped with a number of jigsaw puzzles, several half-complemented, and magazines in towering stacks, well-loved by the hundreds of patients who came through the Sleep Clinic each month.  We got to know the Sleep Clinic well, and the view from the 17^th floor of the Gonda building, looking out over the city and to the wilds beyond, was one of the highlights of the trip.

New Year, Fresh Start

Hello readers,

L'Shana Tova to all readers who, like Owl and I, are celebrating the High Holidays. This time marks the new year for the Jewish people, the beginning of the year 5776.

For my part, I am resolving on the new year to be more mindful of my promise to this blog. It's been a month and a day since the last post here. It has been a busy month for us both---Owl went back home to visit family, I had a long-awaited trip to the Mayo Clinic, we said goodbye to one of our best friends as she moved across the country, and we celebrated the New Year with my family and my childhood synagogue. It was a good, busy month to end a good, busy summer, but now we are back, and hopefully back to stay. I will not promise daily updates, at least not right away, as I think both Owl and I found that a challenge that we were not quite prepared to face just yet, but we will update as often as we can, and hopefully you will continue to find what we have to say worth reading!

5775 was a good year, but it was also a trying year. Since last Rosh Hashanah I lost two jobs due to illness. I spent far too much time in the UW ER in the middle of the night. I saw many doctors and did not get many answers. Two of my dearest friends left the city, and while they are beginning their own adventures off in the great unknown (outside the Midwest) I miss them quite a bit. I hope that 5776 will have all of the sweetness of 5775 but less of the stress. I hope this not just for me, but for all of you as well. I always thought I was lucky, having the opportunity to celebrate a new year twice annually. It was confusing, yes, from a calendrical perspective, but the time for reflection and resolution is always a welcome one.

So: I hope in the new year this blog will be getting the upkeep it deserves. I hope all the best for myself and for all of you, and I hope you all have a sweet new year. May we all be inscribed for blessings in the book of life.

Shanah Tova.

P.S. In my next post, I will talk more about my experiences at the Mayo Clinic. (Ooh! Fun!) If you have anything you want to ask me about the process, or about Mystery Illness in general, leave it in the comments, and I will do my best to answer, within reason.

Religions of Wisconsin

This week, I have so far seen:

-Four Buddhist monks (bhikkhu) in kasaya standing around the jewelry counter in Sears, looking at diamond necklaces. I think, judging by the color of the robes, they were Tibetan. I don't know if that makes this any more or less unlikely, but I thought you'd like all the details I could offer.

-Two different bhikkhu, three days later, chatting in a McDonald's. McDonald's, in case you were wondering, is not known for offering vegetarian options, especially in the US, (though I do talk about their surprisingly helpful nutrition labeling here); granted this is not necessarily a requirement of all bhikkhu, but there was a certain juxtaposition in the image.

-A woman who, upon me holding the door of the aforementioned McDonald's open for her and the small child she was carrying, told her child to say "thank you" because that's what you say when somebody performs a mitzvah. (I'm all for teaching cultural literacy early, but if your kid can't say "hello" yet there's a good chance "mitzvah" is beyond them. I admire your dedication, though, Polite McDonald's Stranger.)

-A group of Mennonites at the zoo, which while not odd in and of itself, is somewhat odder considering that Owl and I have seen at least one group of Mennonties every time we've been to said zoo. Which is a lot of times. It is, in fact, more times than we have seen the zoo's tiger, who spends much of his time sleeping, with no concern for my burning desire to be best friends with it.

-A Hasidic boy and his father buying Sprite from a mall vending machine. The boy had a kippah with the Acme Road Runner embroidered on the back. I saw them later, sitting on the ground outside the mall waiting as a minivan driven by a woman in a tichel picked them up. 

Briefly, a disclaimer: I do not claim to be an expert in anything at all, especially religion, and especially at least two of the three religions mentioned above. This is why I give you links. Sometimes the links are to Wikipedia. They may or may not have been written by experts. Sometime the links are to forums. Probably not experts, but they know more than me. Sometimes they are to actual academic discussions or legitimate articles. Those are probably by experts. Don't believe everything you read on the Internet, even if you read it here!

Religious diversity is a wonderful thing. So is cultural literacy, which, when it pertains to religion, is a) super important and b) so often woefully lacking. As an example, in the area I grew up, it was entirely reasonable to, if you were the class's Token Jew like me, expect a) to be asked if Jews believe in God, b) to be told Jews don't believe in God, c) to be told Jews killed Jesus, d) to be told that I, personally, was responsible, as a Jew, for killing Jesis, e) to ask me if I "spoke Jewish" and f) to face outrage if I asked, in turn, if they "spoke Christian". Not to generalize, but most of the people asking me these questions were Christian, because most of the people I grew up around were Christian. Religious diversity: important, but hard. And I, myself, have some glaring blind spots when it comes to other religions, and sometimes even my own. Furthermore, as an atheist, or if you prefer, Secular Jew, I have found that it's not always enough to respect religion. If you don't practice it yourself, some people just won't recognize your opinions. And sometimes other atheists will scorn you for trying to be respectful. Sometimes, it turns out, people aren't very nice, and that comes out, more often than ever, when you challenge their core beliefs.

But religion, or lack thereof, is just another fascinating aspect of all of our collective and individual identities. We are these amazing, complex, deeply intuitive creatures, with a capacity for introspection and awe that should be cherished. The fact that we have developed so many vastly intricate and immensely captivating religions and denominations and sects is a thing of beauty. The assumption that not having a religion makes you devoid of a moral code, compromises your humanity, or makes you arrogant is absurd, but so too is the assumption that having a religion makes you complacent or unintelligent. Non-religion does not make you blind to beauty, and religion does not make you blind to reason. If we accept that, if we learn to see the humor in a kippah with the Road Runner on it without judging the wearer for being too pious, or not pious enough, or not pious in the right way, we will all be much better for it. 

P.S. Since this was a very link-heavy post, because I like letting others explain things for me, and because we rely on outside links a lot in this blog, I set up a poll, where you can tell me what you think about clicking on a dozen links when you read our pretty, pretty words. You can find it here------->*

*(may be slightly lower or higher on the page but I trust you to find it yourself from here. I believe in you!)

Houses

There is an entire generation that can, by and large, define their personality by which house they belong to.

Of course, not everybody of my generation has read the Harry Potter books, but they are nevertheless a sort of cultural touchstone. Most pop-culture savvy millennials are at least familiar with terms like Hogwarts and Muggle, even if they haven't actually consumed any of the media in the Harry Potter franchise.

So, understandably, which of the four Hogwarts houses an individual belongs to has become something of a point of speculation for some. There are hundreds of quizzes online that attempt to solve this question, but the definitive quiz by and large seems to be the Sorting Hat quiz on Pottermore, a site moderated by JK Rowling herself.

July 31^st was Harry Potter's 35^th birthday, so the series has been on my mind recently. Earlier today I got into a conversation with some friends about which of the four Hogwarts Houses we all saw ourselves as, and several of us took (or retook) the Pottermore Sorting Hat quiz. Some of us were surprised by the results. Some of us noted that they had changed from earlier results on the same quiz. Some of us recalled relating to one house in particular when we first began to read the books, and then having our views change overtime. That makes sense, we agreed. Personalities change over time. In the decade it took for the books to be written, all of the readers evolved as individuals. What house they most resonated with as an early reader might well be completely at odds with what house they resonated with by the time the series had culminated.

Then one of us pointed out that, at Hogwarts, the same thing happens. Over the seven years a student is expected to attend Hogwarts, a lot can change. But they are permanently assigned to a house that best fit the personalities of their eleven-year-old self. Granted, this brought up several interesting considerations---for instance, Neville displays few traits of the typical Gryffindor for the majority of the series, but in the end proves himself capable of wielding the sword of Godric Gryffindor himself. Does the Sorting Hat know who a student will end up becoming? What are the greater implications of that?

Think back to your eleven-year-old selves. Who were you then? Who are you now? Do you still hold the same fundamental values? Are your principle worldviews still the same? Do you interact with people the same way?

And when it comes right down to it, how important is the Sorting Hat? How strong of an influence does a student's house have on them? After all, Hagrid asserts that "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin," though this is clearly untrue since Peter Pettigrew, who betrays his best friends for Voldemort (though ultimately sacrifices himself in a final act of redemption) was a Gryffindor, and the inverse certainly isn't true since there were countless Slytherins who never “went bad” and countless more who redeemed themselves. So, while being sorted into a particular house comes with certain stigmas and expectations, it is not enough to shape who you are or who you will become. Yet, it serves as a convenient way for Hogwarts students to label themselves and others. It becomes a part of their identity, both internally and externally, and influences both how they are viewed and how they are treated.

At eleven, human brains are still far from being fully developed. It seems absurd that so integral a part of a young witch or wizard's identity would rest on a choice made at so young an age.

Admittedly, that choice is being made by a sentient hat, so this may just have to be one of those times where logic takes a back seat to magic, and that's perfectly alright.

What house are you? Is this different from what you used to see yourself as? Tell us in the comments below!

A Year of New Experiences

Well, clearly I was not so good at updating during my hiatus. Are we surprised? No? Yeah, okay, that's fair!

I'm planning a fairly long post (or possible multiple posts) about the reason for my hiatus: a family trip to Holland and Norway. Spoilers: it was awesome. For today, though, here's a bit of a reflective post.

I turned 24 last Friday. In many ways, 23 wasn't a great year for me. I quit a job for the first time. I quit a job for the second time. I had my first ER visit, closely followed by my second ER visit. I had my first MRI, my second MRI, my first elimination diet, my second elimination diet, and so on. I dropped my first course, had my first car die, and mourned the loss of my first, longest, and biggest hero. At first, when I looked back on my year, it was kind of hard to get all that excited about it. For much of this year, I felt like a failure. I felt like I had accomplished nothing. I felt like I had given up so many things that I should have pursued. Now, almost all of these disappointments were directly linked to being ill, so I recognized on some level that it wasn't necessarily any great weakness of spirit that was my shortcoming, but rather the it was the inevitable manifestation of the unforseen side effects of Mystery Illness. After a point, however, it became hard to console myself with that reminder. I beat myself up for allowing myself to become a victim of circumstance. Even if I couldn't control my illness, certainly I could control my life, so really, what was my excuse? To a certain extent I think this is true, and to a certain extent I think it's untrue, and probably not fair to myself. But that's an entirely different issue. The point is, I was struggling to find any reason to be proud of the past year, and I felt like I had nothing positive to show for it.

But yesterday, I received something in the mail, and with it a much needed change of perspective. An envelope addressed to me showed up along with the weekly ads and junk mail, and inside it was a check. From my client, for whom I am doing some promotional blogging for his novels. 

I had just received my first paycheck as a freelance writer.

This brought on a degree of pride and satisfaction far greater than I had expected, and even more importantly, it got me thinking about all of the other "firsts" of the past year. Not all of them were positives, clearly, as shown above. But a lot of them were, and a lot of them were pretty big, too. They just got lost in the mire of my disappointments, and I focused on all of the wrong things. 

Some of these achievements are big. Some are small. Some are personal, some are professional, and some are silly. All of them, however, are important to me, and I am grateful for them all.

With that in mind, here's another list:

Raven's 15 Firsts of the Past Year

1.) First paycheck as a freelance writer

2.) First paycheck as a freelance web designer

3.) First experience as a video game journalist

4.) First blog (thanks guys!)
5.) First post-college classes (even if had to drop one of them, I learned a lot from both, and am proud of myself for continuing my education.)
6.) First time writing my own functional code (since I'm not willing to count the tinkering I did in high school and college as "functional")

7.) First full year in my own apartment ("own" meaning I pay rent, not that I live alone, in this case)

8.) First time living alone with a significant other

9.) First new car (see how I turned one of my negatives into a positive? Perspective!)

10.) First trip to my family cottage without my parents or any other family members (one of the big signs of adulthood in my family)

11.) First out-of-town nerd convention (going to cons is one thing, but traveling and renting a hotel room for them? A whole different experience!)

12.) First watercolor painting (Paintings of maps count, right?)

13.) First penpal!

14.) First time being a regular at a comic book shop (It's a big deal to me, okay?)

15.) First experience with being self-employed (It's terrifying! And rewarding!)

And as a super special bonus, two weeks ago I met my incredibly sweet cousin for the first time, right before he turned a year old. I love that kid!

There's a Hebrew prayer that is said upon experiencing something for the first time, the Shehecheyanu (שהחינו‎). I'm not particularly spiritual, but this prayer has always resonated with me:

 בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לזְּמַן הַזֶּה.

Blessed are you, Eternal God, Sovereign of the universe, who has given us life, sustained us, and helped us to reach this moment. 

Thanks for reading.

P.S. The project that has consumed a very large part of the past year isn't quite wrapped up like I had hoped it would be by now. I won't say anymore just yet (though if we've talked much in the past year you probably know about it) but it definitely introduced a whole slew of new experiences, and I am very excited to tell you about it, I hope soon!

Raven is Reading: looking for alaska, Mort, The Carpet People

Lately I have been bad about making time for just sitting down and reading. Which is why I was proud of myself for dedicating a solid chunk of time towards reading today. I started John Green's looking for alaska today while waiting for Owl to get off from work, and am nearly done with it now. Even though it is a book that I am not entirely sure I like, despite trying very hard to do so, I am still grateful to have made the time to read it. (Well, almost all of it. I'll finish tomorrow, if not later tonight.)

Since I did a review of the shows Owl and I were watching a few months ago in the post "Rivendell is Watching..." I thought it would be interesting to do an occasional update for what we, or at least I, am reading, as well. If nothing else, it will help make me aware of how much, or little, I am actually reading, so that I can remind myself to devote more time to it.

I'm almost always reading at least two books simultaneously, often many more. I guess I just like to have options for what I read, depending on what mood I'm in, or what interests me in the moment.

So, here's what I'm reading currently:

looking for alaska
John Green

I still have yet to decide whether or not I actually like looking for alaska. I still have about fifty pages left, and I have enjoyed reading it, but that isn't necessarily the same as liking it. I certainly respect John Green immensely, both for his writing and for his videos, and he's done something that almost nobody else has been able to do, which is getting me to read books that center heavily on teenage angst and romance, so that's already a great credit to him. looking for alaska just isn't clicking with me the way I expected it to, and that's okay. It certainly has captured my attention, and is absolutely thought-provoking. For those who don't know, looking for alaska centers around Miles "Pudge" Halter as he experiences his first year at Culver Creek boarding school----a setting very much based on John Green's own experience with boarding school in Alabama. He is instantly drawn to Alaska Young, though I will admit this: I cannot fathom why. I find Alaska wholly unlikable. But this is redeemed by a strong and memorable cast of supporting characters that are clever, funny, and incredibly enjoyable to read, which more than makes up for my distaste for Alaska (and Miles, when it comes down to it.) The book's most notable feature is that it centers around a clear turning point. The nature of this turning point is only made clear when it happens, but the entire book is framed in two sections, before and after, with each subsection consisting of a day during Miles' first year at Culver Creek. The days are either formatted as "xxxx days before" or "xxxx days after" and it certainly added an element of suspense to the story, even if the turning point itself wasn't much of a surprise for me.

Mort
Sir Terry Pratchett

I started rereading Mort about two weeks ago. The Sunday before last, I managed, in an act of true stupidity, to injure my head, enough for it to bleed quite a bit but not enough to be concussed. The details involved a very ill-placed cavalry sword in a heavy steel sabre we were given as a gift last Christmas, a wobbly bookshelf, and me re-shelving some comics. Perhaps you can guess the details. Suffice it to say, head wounds hurt, swords don't go on high places if they're unsecured, and Owl is a trooper for, once again, tending to my bleeding war wounds.

After the blood had been sopped up, I sat on the futon in our spare room with an ice pack to my head, and Owl brought me in a book. She knows that I like to read familiar books when I'm upset, sick, or in pain, and she also knows that there's not much in the world I enjoy reading more than a good Pratchett book. (Good, in my mind, means all of them, by the by.) Without asking, she brought me one of my very favorites, and since then I have been reading it slowly, savoring it, allowing myself the luxury of returning to an old, beloved friend even though I have resolved to spend more time reading new books and less time rereading old ones.

Mort was the fourth Discworld novel to be published, in 1987. Pratchett's Discworld books are often broken up into "mini-series", based on which group or entity they focus on, and Mort is the first  book in the Death "miniseries". Though Death appears in all but one of the Discworld books, Mort is the first book to focus on him, and in Mort, he takes on an apprentice...fittingly named Mort. Mort, to me, is a prime example of what character development should look like. At the beginning, he is a somewhat simple country boy with little going for him, but when he his apprenticed by Death he begins to change, gradually but ultimately drastically, until he can stand up to Death himself. One of my favorite books, I always enjoy reading Mort, and I find myself cherishing every reading of a Pratchett novel all the more in his passing.

Which is why it shouldn't surprise anybody that the third book on my list is...

The Carpet People 
Sir Terry Pratchett

The Carpet People was Pratchett's first novel. I started reading it quite a while back (I first mention it here, when, just days after Pratchett's death, I am stunned into silence by a simple memorial to him in the form of a Barnes and Noble endcap honoring his legacy) but was interrupted several times due to various instance of Real Life getting in the way, and have not made much progress. As I am not very far along in it, I won't say much, but I will say that it is as clever and as witty as I have come to expect from Pratchett, and that if my first book could be a slim fraction as enjoyable as his was, I should be so lucky.

I am also making my way though The Runaways, which I talk about here, and Pandemonium and Parade, which I talk about here.

In closing, I am, for reasons that will soon be apparent, looking to make a number of relatively quick posts (but still interesting and informative) in a very short period of time. Do you have any queries I can answer? Lists you would like to see? Pressing questions about archaeology, video games, or Battlestar Galactica? List them in the comments and maybe I'll make a post on them! It might be a Reader's Digest version, or, if I really like your question or if it sparks a much more detailed post, it may be saved for later to get a nice long post of its own!

That's all for now,
Raven

Insomnia

I think by now we can dismiss all pretenses that this is in any way a daily blog. On the bright side, I've had three separate people prod Owl and I about updating, which at least means that we have followers! Well, three of them at any rate.

Instead of another tired apology for a long blogging dry spell, I'm going to talk about an issue that is near and dear to my heart.

Okay, so it's one of those things.

I've spoken a bit about Mystery Illness, but I haven't spent quite as much time addressing an issue that has plagued me for pretty much as far back as I can recall. With my clever and subtle title, I'm sure you're all chomping at the bit to find out whatever that could be.

I remember struggling with sleeping through the night, and with getting to sleep, as far back as elementary school. It wasn't dire, then, barring one memorable incident when I was in third or fourth grade where I was told a scary story at a Girl Scouts sleepover that haunted me so badly that I couldn't fall asleep without somebody else in the room. I don't remember how long this lasted---in all liklihood it was only a week or so, but to my tired, traumatized little brain it seemed like an eternity. I distinctly recall sitting in my classroom trying to attend to the teacher explaining long division to us, my eyes dry and scratchy, eyelids drooping, resisting the urge to lay my head down on my desk, and thinking that this feeling, this terrible, dull ache in the back of my skull, the fuzziness between my eyes, and the gnawing horror both from the lingering effects of that one damn story and from the creeping panic that sets in after two or three nights of restless agony, this feeling was going to last forever.

That was one isolated incident in my childhood, but it has etched itself in my brain in a way that only the most vivid struggles of an otherwise unburdened youth can---deeply and with much embellishment. Had I known that day in the classroom that I had only just gotten a small taste of what would become my future relationship with insomnia, I think tiny nine-year-old me would have broken down in tears. (Granted, we were studying long division, so tears may have been an inevitable part of the equation.)

At some point in middle school I was informed that a healthy human required, on average, eight hours of sleep to function properly. By that point my sleep issues were bad enough that eight seemed rather high, but not outside the realm of believability. By late high school and early college however, eight hours of sleep a night seemed like an utterly alien concept, a luxury that I could not imagine anybody ever being lucky enough to afford. The incident above was the only point in my life that my insomnia has been assosiated with a clear external cause, barring the occasional post-horror movie restlessness or the pre-exam stress-induced sleeplessness. Normally, though, it's just...there. This constant, inexplicable barrier that nothing I do can overcome. Some things make it better, of course, sometimes, but so far, there's no reliable fix, no instant cure, nothing I can depend on to secure those eight (or so) hours of recharging we all need to be as awesome as we can be.

Let me be perfectly clear here: Insomnia sucks. It's draining, nerve-wrecking, and seeps into areas of your life that you'd never expect. Try showing up for an 8am class or a job that starts at 7 when you haven't slept for the past two days straight. (Don't actually try this at home, kids.) You know that feeling you get when you've been sitting at your desk for too long and your back and neck ache? With insomnia, everything aches. Constantly. It can make you sick to your stomach, light headed, and irritable. It can ruin your appetite---some people gain weight, some people lose it, some people do both, fluctuating between the two like their internal mechanisms have gone entirely haywire, because that's essentially what they're doing.

If you don't have trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep, count your blessings (as well as your sheep, of course). It feels not unlike what I imagine slowly going mad might feel like, once you've gone long enough without proper rest. At times, it can be not just inconvenient and exhausting, but terrifying. For me, there's still sometimes this irrational, annoying, tiny Raven in the back of my head that chimes in, just around the time dawn is breaking, after twenty- or thirty-odd hours of sleeplessness, with the suggestion that maybe, juuuuust maybe, I would never sleep again. That tiny voice in my head is a real bastard, but when you're staring at your ceiling listening to a cacophony of robins right outside your window, even that seems plausible.

I've been trying, however, not to dwell too much on the negatives, however. So, let me say this as well.

Recently I've come to understand a curious phenomenon : when something becomes a constant, pervasive force in your life, you tend to develop a relationship with it. Whehter it is a good force or a bad force, it is an important enough influence in your life that it takes on a life of its own. To a degree this has happened to me with Mystery Illness, and it has certainly happened with insomnia. And as with all relationships, we either have to find a way to tolerate them, or cut them out of my life. Unlike other relationships, however, insomnia isn't like a jealous ex or a petty coworker. You can't just walk away from it. You have to find a way to tolerate it.

Right now, my insomnia and I have a working relationship. It is not a good relationship. It's the sort of relationship that has our friends shaking their heads and warning us away from one another, as though we could do anything to resist. It's like insomnia and I are two people stuck on a deserted island. There's no sign of rescue, so we've got to buckle down and work together, or at least around one another, to survive until help comes. (Help, in this case, is sleep. Was that metaphor not clear enough? Maybe a Lost analogy will make the deserted island metaphor better: Insomnia is Jack, and I'm Locke. Or possibly Sawyer, depending on how irritable I'm feeling.) It may not be a good relationship, but right now we have an understanding. Insomnia insists its here to stay, and since it doesn't seem to be budging on this issue, I've decided to put down my foot. If it's going to crash in my house, it's playing by my rules. Just because I'm not sleeping doesn't mean I can't be productive. Do you have any idea the number of things you can get done in the middle of the night? I can reorganize my notebooks and pens without Owl looking at me funny! I can catch up on Netflix shows I'm too busy to watch normally.

Honestly, I'm more productive when I can't sleep. A night owl by nature, I do some of my best writing in the wee hours. I read more. I draw. I paint.  The number of times I've dedicated several hours in the middle of the night to troubleshooting problems with my tablet or my PC is astonishing. Just a few hours ago I solved an issue between my tablet, an app I reaaaaaally wanted to play (guys go check out Plague Inc!) and Google Play that has been bothering me all week. Lately, I've been awake to greet the dawn. Sunrise is a time of day that I adore, but generally speaking I only see it from the wrong way round. But this week, I've been making the most of it. I've been compiling to-do lists. I've been tidying. I've started heading down to the bakery/cafe down the street when they open at 6. I grab two cups of coffee and some pastries, and bring them back home so that they're there for Owl and I when it approaches normal-people hours. Then I take my notebook and head down to the pier right behind our apartment. I love sitting on the benches and the rocks and looking out at the expanse of lake before me. I can see the downtown area and the university from the pier and the capitol building wreathed in fog is an image I will never grow tired of. I would probably rather be well-rested, but as a second choice, being constantly overwhelmed by the beauty of the city that I live in and the immense fortune and joy I have in my life is not the worst option.

Basically, this is a very long-winded explaination as to why I started this blog post at four in the morning. The bakery is open now, so I'm going to go fetch us some breakfast and take a walk down to the lake. Later today we will have the delightful rhubarb and strawberry pie we made last night, and we're making somem delicious homemade iced tea to go with it! We're planning to spend much of the day cooking and baking. We went to the Farmers' Market on Saturday, so we've got garlic bulbs and scapes that we're going to turn into a delightful compound butter along with sage from our freshly potted sage plant! We're also going to figure out what to do with the rest of our rhubarb, and do some meal planning and prepping for this week. It's going to be a pretty great day, so the fact that I got to be up for all of it is a good thing, right?

...right?

Thank God for June

I love May. I really do. It's one of my favorite months, in fact, for precisely the same reason that I am now incredibly glad it's over.

Basically everything forever happens in May, at least on my calendar. For instance, Owl, my mother, and one of my best friends all have May birthdays. Both my parents and Owl and I have anniversaries in May, theirs for their wedding, ours for our (somewhat less impressive) first date. Mother's Day happens. Memorial Day happens. If you're as huge a nerd as I am, May is a big time for that as well, as May 4th is Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with us all) and May 25th is Geek Pride Day (a.k.a. Towel Day in honor of Douglas Adams, but it also marks the anniversary of the Glorious Revolution of the Twenty-Fifth of May, and the 1977 release of Star Wars).

This May we also celebrated with my cousin at her baby shower, and with two of our good college friends on the occasion of their wedding. This last event was especially exciting, and was also the main source of my exhaustion the past few days. The wedding itself was last week, and was an absolutely beautiful affair. I couldn't be happier for the beautiful couple. The occasion was especially exciting since it meant that a gaggle of college friends flew in, and we ended up having a number of folks sleeping on our couches and futon. This includes Crow, our old roommate who abandoned us forever, except not really! It was wonderful to see him for the weekend, and he got to crash in his old room, which looks exactly the same except almost everything is different. As much as we love having a new media room/guest room/office/insomnia hideaway, I think both Owl and I would much rather it still belong to Crow, and it was hard to see him leave again yesterday.

Oh, and I also was the lucky recipient of not one, not two, not three, but five doctors visits/exams/sharp needle poking experiences in the past week. It was super fun, only exactly the opposite of that. Actually, it wasn't horrendous, but that is still many more sterile white offices than I want to see in the span of seven days.

On top of that, classes ended, I turned in final papers, I was hired on for another project, and all sorts of exciting, fun, and occasionally stressful things happened.

So, May really is a fun and exciting month for me, but perhaps now you can see why I am a bit tired, and why the blog has been awfully quiet of late.

If all goes well, we will resume regular posts this week, but I don't want to make promises that I may very well break! With any luck, though, you'll see me again on Thursday.

Ta, lovelies.

-Raven the Sleepy

Late post is late...

...as I am back in my hometown for my mother's birthday party. Happy birthday, Mama Raven! (Though you're also Mama Rook...hm. Not quite sure how this avian family works.) There's going to be an incredibly lovely party tomorrow and I am very excited, though there's a lot of work to do! This weekend feels a little bit like the scene in Beauty and the Beast where they're all getting ready for the big feast. Y'know, sans all the talking cultery.

There are cats though. Does that count? They're not the best conversationalists, but they make up for it by pawing desperately at anybody who walks by.

I don't have much of substance to say today, as I only have a few minutes. The rest of this weekend is dedicated to family, as I don't get to see them nearly as often as I would like, and blogging takes a back seat to spending time with them. Rook is even home for the weekend, and I hardly ever get to see him. My parents and Rook are three of the most incredible people ever, and if you know them you probably wish you could be hanging out with them instead of reading this blog, too!

So, in lieu of deep substantial posts, my part of the next few days of posting will be....more lists! Owl did a stellar job of covering Boko Haram earlier this week, so at least you have something of substance to tide you over. I always said she was the smart one. (And the pretty one, and the cool one. I'm just the funny one.)

Rook just got himself some nice, shiny Marvel Unlimited. The newly-updated app combined with his sleek Fire is a pretty swank set-up, and I'm envious. Last time I tried MU on my tablet it was...basically non-functional. Looks like it's gotten a little bit better since then, so I may give it another go, but I will say there's a bit of a risk right now for anybody paying for the MU subscription and hoping for great functionality on mobile devices.

That said, in the spirit of oooh look at the shiny new comics, have a list about comics!

8 Marvel Comics Recommended by Raven and Rook (based off what we've read recently.)

1. Deadpool Vol 1: Dead Presidents
This 2012 Deadpool arch is pretty amazing. If you like Deadpool, Dead Presidents is a great arch, and if you don't...well, this is very Deadpool.
2. Runaways
A bunch of teens find out that their parents are supervillians. They're...not thrilled.
3. Ms. Marvel
Because duh.
4. Avengers Academy
Rook describes this as taking teenagers who are at risk to become super villians and training them to become heroes instead. Hopefully. 
5.  Superior Foes of Spiderman
"A Fiasco-esque story about villians plotting against villians, badly." -Rook
6. Rocket Raccoon
Did you like the Guardians of the Galaxy movie? Did you think Rocket was the best part of it? Read these. He's the best part of most things.
7. Secret Warriors
"Nick Fury's hand-picked team of unknowns that he shapes into his super-powered black ops task force." -Also Rook
8. Hawkeye Vol. 1: My Life as a Weapon
Really, this whole series is great, and Matt Fraction is stellar. But My Life as a Weapon is my favorite so far, because of the way it sets up the dynamic between Barton and Kate.

That's right. I'm mixing in recommendations for single volumes along with recommendations for entier series. There is no rhyme or reason in this world anymore!

But seriously, go read some awesome comics.

OH, AND!

**Way to go, Ireland! Today, they became the first country to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote. This is incredible news! Definitely exciting enough to merit a full post. Sorry, Ireland. I'm not forgetting about you. I'll talk about how awesome you are again sometime soon.***

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend, if you're here in Amurica. If you're not, have a great normal weekend!

Cheerio,
Raven

Graduation

'Tis the season for college graduations. I didn't mention this as one of the personal landmarks commemorated on May 12 in my last post, but in addition to Owl's birthday and our anniversary, it also marked two years since I graduated from college. I've been thinking a lot about graduation, college life, and my life now as an "adult" in the "real world". (What it means to be an adult and what it means to life in the so-called "real world" are both subjective notions. Let's ignore the nuances of each concept right now, or else we'll never get anything done.)

I loved college. Absolutely loved it. I loved the classes, which encouraged me to think both analytically and creatively and which challenged me in a way coursework never had before. I loved the professors, who, at my small liberal arts college, were personable, engaged, and brilliant. And I loved the community. It was the first time I found a group of friends that ever truly made me feel like I belonged, and that feeling, that realization of kinship and unity, stayed with me throughout all of college and into my post-college life.

Graduation, for me as for so many others, was incredibly bittersweet. I looked forward to the opportunities ahead of me---I had an archaeological dig lined up for the end of the summer, and an internship supervised by one of my professors after that---but I knew that I would dearly miss all that I was leaving behind. I was anxious, scared, excited, and sad, all at once. When I walked across that stage, I was proud of what I had accomplished, but I also felt myself wondering if I could have accomplished more. Did I get the most out of my education? Did I take advantage of the resources at my disposal to their fullest extent? Did I engage with my community and with my peers as much as I could have? These doubts still linger today----could I have been a better student? Absolutely. Though I tried very hard to get where I did, there's always room for improvement. I could have pushed myself harder. I could have aimed even higher. Could I have been a better leader? Sure. I held several important leadership positions in clubs and camps organizations, but my commitment wavered, I spread myself too thin more often than not, and my confidence could have used a serious boost to really be a great leader. Could I have been a better friend? Of course. Though I made the best friends of my life in college, I could have given them more of  my time. I could have been more supportive. There were times when I should have been there for people who needed me, and I let them down. I know I couldn't be perfect, but I still ask myself if I couldn't at least have been just a bit better. These doubts are natural. We learn from our mistakes. Our regrets motivate us to strive for better outcomes next time around.

The thing is, I'm still asking myself those questions. Not just about college---about everything. When we're young, we have this tenancy to assume that everything will be easier when we grow up. That when we're adults we'll have all the answers. My parents made navigating the dangerous and often unforgiving waters of the real world look easy. I couldn't wait to grow up so that I would know all the cool things they knew, I could do everything with as much ease and confidence as they did. I thought I'd graduate college, or turn twenty, or hit some sort of milestone and then everything would just make sense, and fall into place.

Maybe that milestone is still out there, but I highly doubt it. There's no class you can take on "how to be a grown-up". There are tests though---they're in every interaction we have every day. Around graduation I always see all sorts of books "for the graduate in your life", that promise to have all the answers. How to be an adult. How to succeed in the real world. How to live your life, how to make the best choices, how to live a life free of regrets and doubts and mistakes.

And call me crazy, but I'm beginning to suspect that they're all bullshit.

There's no key. There's no trick. We're always learning, always messing up, always getting better. Nobody can teach us how to be an adult, just like nobody can teach us how to be a kid. This may not seem like a revolutionary concept, but I think no matter how much we rationally know all of this, it can be hard to internalize. It's like I'm still waiting for my "Adult-in-Training" card in the mail, even though I know that it will never come, that I just have to try my best (and know when to ask for help).

To any college graduates (or any sort of graduate, really) reading this, here's the best advice I can give you: Try your hardest, do what feels right, use your brain, and be kind to others. Do that, and everything will probably be alright in the end.

Oh, and one last bit of advice: watch this video, and then this one, this one, and finally this one.*

Soon-to-be-adults and veteran adults alike, thanks for reading, and in the words of John and Hank Green, don't forget to be awesome.

*I don't necessarily endorse all of the content in these videos**, though for the most part I agree with them. But they helped me, and I hope they help you, too!
**Except the last video. I endorse every single kitten in the final video.

Festivities

Owl mentioned in her last post that Tuesday was a pretty special day for us. I love taking time to celebrate important events, like anniversaries and birthdays, in a large part because I believe that being actively grateful for good things that have happened is a good practice, but also, because celebrations generally come hand in hand with food.

There's a common Jewish saying: All holidays can be summed up simply, "they tried to kill us, we won, let's eat!" This has always resonated with me. I like the philosophy that we should not spend all our time grieving for the bad things that have happened to us, but rather we should celebrate the victories, and look forward to many more. I love that the culture I grew up in wholeheartedly embraced the idea that life was a joyous and wonderful thing, and that even in hard times, we should rejoice in what we have, and be mindful of all the good there is in the world.

But more than that, I love food. I love how integral it is to so many different aspects of our life. Beyond simply needing nutrients to survive, we as a collective species and as individual communities and cultures have elevated food above a vital resource for our continued survival. Food is inexorably bound with culture, art, community, and expression. A shared meal is one of the firmest and most universal expressions of togetherness and unity. The food we eat, the way we prepare it, how we structure our meals, all help define us as people, both individually and as part of a community. I love the creativity that goes into truly inspired meal planning.

As I have struggled with Mystery Illness, my relationship with food has changed. In some ways it has evolved. I have become more mindful of what I eat, how I eat it, and when. I have developed more patience for preparing meals and for purchasing ingredients. I have built healthier eating habits. It has also challenged my relationship with food, however. I often have little to no appetite. I sometimes go days without a full meal, just eating small  things here and there, because my body just can't handle the thought of food. I have had to try restricting and aggravating diets, which have made meals a frustrating and unpleasant experience, instead of cherished and leisurely culinary adventures, as the best meals should be.

Lately it has seemed as though we were on the brink of some breakthroughs with Mystery Illness. I've had a few good weeks. It's possible that I even have a diagnosis, making the Mystery Illness somewhat less of a mystery. But in the past few days, I've been nearly as sick as I was before the improvement began. It's been disheartening, but I am still hopeful.

Part of what has kept me hopeful is the memory of the last Good Meal I had this week before Mystery Illness began coming round knocking again. The last Good Meal I've had this week was the birthday dinner I prepared for Owl. The whole day, in fact, was filled with good food, and instead of dwelling on how poorly I've been feeling I want to focus on what it felt like to rediscover how amazing it was to be cooking creatively and passionately again. I thought I would share with you some of the highlights from Tuesday's culinary adventures.

I started out Tuesday by bringing Owl breakfast in bed. Normally breakfast and I don't get on, since for whatever reason I generally feel sickest when I first wake up, which is highly unfortunate because breakfast foods are some of my favorites. So I had a wonderful time cooking for Owl, since even though I didn't have much of an appetite myself, I could still go through the process of making the food, with no expectations of having to eat it myself. Often, I like the cooking even better than I like the consuming, so this was actually a very relaxing experience for me.

I fried up some bacon for Owl, and then used a slice of bread to soak up the bacon grease and browned the bread in the pan---a truly evil luxury that Owl and I only save for special occasions because seriously, panfried bacon toast is not your heart's friend. I used some hedgerow jam from the local farmer's market on it, and added some tupelo honey to the top. After that I started on a monster omelet, which was the best part by far of the process for me. I love making omelets, a lot more than I like eating them. Eggs in high density, like in omelets, tend to be hard on my stomach, especially for breakfast, but if I can brag for just a moment, I do make some mean eggs, even if I can't always enjoy them myself. This particular omelet was made with sharp cheddar cheese, Nova Scotia lox, basil leaves, fresh green scallions, rosemary, sage, and some minced garlic.

We had spent the night before making some infused ice cubes, since summer means iced tea. We made a whole bunch, and they came out pretty well. The first batch was mint and lavender, and the second, lemon juice and basil leaves. Finally we broke out our excellent ThinkGeek ice cube trays:  lavender with a blackberry in the middle of each went into the Darth Vader tray, lime juice went into the Space Invaders, and iced mocha into the Han Solo in carbonite trays. Incidentally, I really recommend the ThinkGeek trays. They're all made from food grade silicone, so they're very flexible and it's easy to get the ice out. They have a bunch with different characters and if you ever want to get creative with your beverages, this is a fun way to touch them up a bit!

After breakfast we made some green tea with lemon honey and mint, and added the mint and lavender ice cubes. Then we made a pot of black tea, using a mix of Earl Grey and Prince of Wales since we are heathens. We added a good deal of buckwheat honey and some lavender, and used the mint and lavender cubes in here as well, adding a few dashes of vanilla extract as an afterthought. They were both pretty delicious, and we make a point of drinking them out of mason jars whenever possible, because homebrewed iced tea and mason jars just feels like there right pairing.

Dinner that night was a lot of fun to make. Owl was even kind enough to let me do the cooking---she made her own birthday cake, while I made us dinner. I made Ahi Tuna rubbed with rosemary, ginger, mustard seeds, coriander, allspice, Ceylon cloves, cracked bay leaves, and Thai chiles. (Aside from the rosemary and ginger, the rest of the spices were from a spice blend originally meant for crab boils. I have never used it for this purpose, but I find the blend wonderful for so many other occasions.) These were served with crab cakes, though I admit to not making them myself. We got premade crab cakes, and I simply had to cook them, then add some lime to the top for a bit of a kick. I steamed up some spinich and mustard greens, cooked them with butter and red wine, and added some garlic. While the tuna was cooking I sauteed some Cremini mushrooms, shallots, and green peppers, and added them to the steamed greens.

Owl's part of the meal was, in my opinion, the best. She wanted to make either chocolate cupcakes or a chocolate cake, but we ended up having enough batter that she made both. They're both chocolate cakes with dark chocolate and raspberry frosting, and they are absolutely stunning. The cake itself as a ring of blackberries as well as of strawberries, and I really love the little raspberry crowns on all of the cupcakes!

I had an amazing time on Tuesday both cooking and eating food. That hasn't happened in awhile, and it was amazing to be back in the kitchen, cooking food for fun and for a special occasion, instead of doing so as a chore when I have no appetite and no energy. I enjoyed every minute of it, and I'm going to make more of an effort to cook like this more often, Mystery Illness or no.

Owl, it's been a really amazing four years. Thank you for spending them with me. And once again, happy birthday!

I hope my ramblings about food and about my own cooking weren't too boring for you all. This just feels like a fairly major achievement for me, in light of all that has been happening, and I wanted to share it with you. Plus, I'm really proud of the meal I made, and I even took pictures to show it off! If you are reading this and you are a person that I ever get to see in Real Life, you should let me cook for you sometime. It will make me immensely happy, and I'm actually pretty good at it, much to my own surprise.

Thanks for reading. Now I'm hungry! Mmmm, cake.