Tom Glavine's Back!

After five years away from home, Tom Glavine's going back to the Braves. He turned down a $13 million contract with the Mets and opted for $8 million with the Braves and a $3 million buyout.

According to my mom (trusted Braves news source) he told the press he didn't think he was worth the $13 million. At first, the comment brought about warm tinglies, but of course then I thought about how much $5 million really is... Plus, he is 41 years old.

Anyway, I'm glad he's back. Now they need to work on my baby Greg Maddux. Then I will be at peace again.

E.A.S.T.

I did the East Austin Studio Tour this afternoon. Once we got going, I realized that I should have gone by some studios yesterday, as well, but we were busy getting ready for my birthday party last night. We only made it to four places, each of which featured several different artists.

The Bearded Lady screen printing shop was really interesting. I picked up a few free posters and some super cheap t-shirts. The Pump Project Art Complex was loaded with cool artists. Amber Kappes had some great realistic portraits in oils. Another painter, J.Haley, had the greatest picture on his studio door... It was a pic of a painting that read, 'In order to clarify the objective and resolve ambiguity, the painter became a writer.' That was my favorite piece. The words were painted with little attention to composition on top of an abstract painting. Perfect.

My favorite work of the tour was from Debra Broz. She did a lot of pieces with found art books. In one, she went through the entire first half with a pen and covered up all of the words except occurrences of the words 'art' and 'artist'. I didn't have too much time to linger, but I would have liked to talk to her a bit.

Next time, I'll got on Saturday, too.

Herman the Giant Bunny... Continued

So Herman the giant German bunny has a myspace page. Listed as one of his favorite books is The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which, being a personal favorite of my own, made me quite happy. He lists 'being cuddled' and 'having his toes tickled' as some of his favorite activities. He also plays bridge on Thursdays. Who knew? Good old Herman. I wish he didn't live in Berlin, as I would ask him over to snuggle and read Milan Kundera. Alas, I'll have to settle for The Real Man and the real man.

Stephin Merritt on NPR

On NPR yesterday, they had a pretty neat segment on All Things Considered. They put Stephin Merritt in a room with a bunch of recording equipment and gave him two days to write a song. They showed him a few pictures for inspiration, and then they filmed the whole thing. You can hear the song, A Man of a Million Faces, on the website, and you can watch a time-lapse video of the whole process.

Man, I sure do love that guy.

Vegan Diet = No Cramps

Since finishing the Master Cleanse, I've stopped eating all meat and dairy products except for fish. I've felt a lot better and lost a little bit of weight, and my skin has cleared up quite nicely.

Earlier this week, I stumbled upon yet another benefit of the vegan diet: no menstrual cramps. None. Not even a little.

Typically, I at least have one crappy crampy day every month. It's rarely excruciatingly horrible, but it's usually pretty uncomfortable and annoying. However, this month, I had zero symptoms. No cramps at all. I figured it might be a result of the diet changes, and I found this article.

In short, researchers found that women on a low fat, high fiber vegan diet reported fewer and less intense cramps than those on a non-restricted diet. Apparently the reduced fat keeps the body from producing as much excess estrogen, which is the crampy culprit. And, the extra fiber helps flush out any excess amounts that are created. The vegan diet participants were not allowed to eat avocados or peanut butter, but I've been eating a fair amount of both and seem to have achieved the same results.

Apparently, participants in the study also reported fewer concentration problems. as well, but I'm still waiting for that to kick in.

Botanicalls

Botanicalls

Suburban Soccer Moms Are Cool Afterall!

So I have no idea how I came upon the Blonde Mom Blog (okay, so actually it involved a Google search including the word 'poop', but since the Master Cleanse days are over I'll refrain from any further explanation), but I just spent the good part of an hour reading it... And since so many of my friends are having babies now, or have had babies in the last ten or so years, I figured I'd post a link: BlondeMomBlog

Sure, the title made me skeptical. Sure, she's a self-described suburban soccer mom. Yes, she writes about mall shopping and not dying her roots often enough. Of course her hubby makes tons of money and used to be a beach bartender. I'm sure she drives an SUV, though I found no proof. She surely exfoliates and shaves at least bi-daily. However, despite this enormous culture gap, I think her blog is tremendously entertaining. Dare I say heartwarming? Dare I?

Naysayers take note! I'd get a pedicure and do some big box shopping with her any day!

Cleveland wins again

Birds Barbershop

So I just got my haircut at Birds Barbershop. And it's Sunday. And I didn't have to make an appointment. How great is that!

Besides the convenience factor, I have to say that it was probably the nicest and least awkward haircut experiences I've ever had. I walked in and was immediately taken back to the chair where I was offered a beer (which I declined, strangely enough). The woman who cut my hair (named Sarah) had super cool very purple hair, so I was instantly at ease. The conversation was fun and I felt like I was hanging out with friends as opposed to having a 'salon experience'. The whole place felt natural yet professional.

The decor is great, too. It's half 80's video game, half barber shop, half salon. This equals a whopping 150%. Now that's a good score. It's hip yet comfy, and apparently family friendly. There was a little kid next to me getting a pretty normal back-to-school-type haircut. He, and my stylist, highly recommend the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, by the way. I'll have to check it out. Apparently it's pretty cool even though it's all animated. I'm slightly skeptical, though. I love a good turtle costume.

So don't be fooled by the name. Birds does more than your standard mohawk, faux-hawk or mullet. I got a really great 'girl haircut' (Ladybird) at a fairly decent price. My only beef is that I probably should have gone shorter, as my hair grows so quickly. But that was my fault- and I wouldn't feel awkward going back in tomorrow and asking them to take off just a little more.

Baseball

I just finished watching the Red Sox / Indians game. The Indians scored seven runs in the eleventh inning. Go Cleveland.

I don't know how I feel about all of the strange iterations MLB fan caps... the green hat with Red Sox logo and the washed out beige hat... I'm a purist when it comes to baseball. And logos. People just have too many choices these days. Which reminds me...

For awhile, when I was little, Dairy Queen was serving ice cream sundaes in adorable little baseball helmets. My brother and I had tons of them, because we would get them after baseball/softball games. I wonder what ever happened to all of those. I'd love to have them now. I remember being disappointed/intrigued when I'd get an American League team, especially the Oakland A's. American League teams seemed to be dated and old fashioned. However, I did really like the Angels' helmet. That was my first introduction to the American League, before bastardized interleague play. It was probably my first introduction to logo design, as well.

Eating is Hard

I downed a cup of the worst soup I've ever tasted (made by me!) tonight, along with half a rye cracker. I guess I should say eating is hard when one cooks nasty food. Tomorrow, I think I will go get a salad for lunch. Considering I've only spent money on lemons and juice in the past week, I figure I can spring for a lunch out.

Go Cleveland

So I've only been to Cleveland one time, but for some reason I am in pseudo-love with the city. I really know nothing about it. What I remember from my trip: I went to a good museum, ate a good bagel and maybe went to a health food store to buy tampons? This I do know: any city with an area called 'The Flats' is interesting.

And now, there's an eerie baseball story (no pun intended) to make it even more appealing.

Apparently there was a shortstop, Ray Chapman, who was killed when he got hit in the head by a pitch back in 1920. Also apparently, a big bronze memorial plaque had been made in his honor awhile back, but it had been misplaced during the team's move from Municipal Stadium in 1994. I'm not sure how one misplaces such things, but it was rediscovered at the beginning of this season and was put on display.

The reappearance of this plaque (and Chapman's 'spirit') is said to have triggered a series of freak events that have led to the Indians' landing in the division series, not least of which was when millions of small bugs distracted the Yankees' relief pitcher making him throw two wild pitches that led to the Indians' victory in game two.

Ah, baseball... The article is pretty amusing.

This is also a great time of year to read Ken Kalfus' The Joy and Melancholy Baseball Trivia Quiz, one of my most favorite stories ever. They read it on Selected Shorts a few years ago and have recently replayed it. Too bad you can't listen to episodes online for free... but you can purchase this cool baseball collection from Audible.

Day 10

I guess this isn't literally day Master Cleanse day ten, since I didn't drink the lemonade today... but I did just drink juice- watered down grapefruit juice and orange juice. It was less exciting than I predicted but still a welcome change.

I got a massage today. I'm going crazy with this stuff!

I also went the store and bought tomatoes, brocolli, leeks, spinach, garlic (thank god!) and an avocado. I'm going to make my soup tonight so I can have it tomorrow.

Work was stressful today. Being creative on demand is getting really freaking old. I'm not quite sure what to do about it, as I think I'm kind of locked in to the creative professions at this point.

This concludes 'Thoughts on Master Cleanse' (transformed into thoughts on being crazy). Stay tuned for more. About something different.

Day 9

It's day nine of the master cleanse. Today I did everything as I should. I'm ready for something different. Tomorrow, I'm drinking grapefruit juice. I've never been the biggest fan of said juice, but tomorrow it will feel like the largest triple espresso milkshake I've ever imbibed.

I'm mentally exhausted. I know this has been triggered by the fast, but I think it all comes down to this:

Maybe my boredom breeds self discovery, and self discovery breeds either self-loathing or small amounts of change. (This is all conjecture. This is what I do. This is part of the discovery I've made during the self discovery portion of the fast.) Self-loathing breeds more boredom, as it is accompanied by feelings of worthlessness that keep one from doing things that would relieve one's boredom.

Change comes very slowly, especially when one doesn't put oneself in situations where one can learn a lot quickly, and all of the little realizations you make on the way are tough, leading to more self-loathing (hopefully progressively smaller each time). If you can somehow balance out the ratio of change to self-loathing before you die, and maybe tip it at least slightly in the direction of positive change, I say you've had a successful life. That's it. That's all there is.

Granted, this isn't the case for super chipper people or super learned people or for super benevolent people. For them, there's more to life. But for me, I think that's pretty much what it all boils down to...

And that, friends, sums up my Master Cleanse experience. That and the fact that there's no poo left in my body.

Day 8

I didn't do the saltwater flush this morning because I was already running late.

No saltwater flush = More bathroom trips throughout the day (not that there's much left in me to come out)

Tomorrow I will make it a point to wake up early enough.

I've decided that tomorrow will be my last day of the official Master Cleanse. I'm starting to feel a little wacky, mostly due to my not taking my medicine (for keeping my brain in working order). I think it's completely out of my system now, and I'm really having a hard time concentrating on anything.

For instance this evening my friend and I were at Clementine (coffee place), and she asked if the bright orange wall had always been orange. I said, "Well, probably, since the place is named Clementine and all." Then, approximately three seconds later, I asked, "Wait, so what is a clementine? Why would that mean that the wall should be orange?" Note: I have ingested boxes upon boxes of clementines in my day.

Apparently I have an underdeveloped cerebellum. That's what a random article I just read said. However, due to my underdeveloped cerebellum I cannot remember what or where the article was. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Add to this the fact that:
1. I am having a hard time decided whether I should walk into my bedroom or into my living room so am spending far too much time hanging out in the hallway.
2. My average time spent on any given website is approximately seven seconds, during which time I absorb just enough information to want to tell all my friends, but I can only remember excerpts which are 98% incomplete and 100% uninteresting.
3. I attempted six different designs for one ad today at work, all within fifteen minutes.
4. Last night, I had a rather sensual and somewhat disturbing dream about a glass of milk.
5. My aforementioned excrement, though emerging frequently, is emerging in such a small quantity that it's not really worth the walk to the bathroom.

Thus, on Wednesday I will start drinking orange juice. Technically I'll still be 'juice fasting', so I won't consider it a failure of will power.

Day 7

Master Cleanse day 7 has been really uneventful. Everything was pretty much the same as it has been. I didn't drink that much lemon stuff today, probably because I wasn't very active. I downed about five glasses.

On a happy note, our landlord sent someone to fix our driveway, so I can park in it without tearing up the under side of my car! It had quite a treacherous drop-off. This also means I won't be awoken to the sound of other people's cars being torn up when they randomly turn around in it in the middle of the night.

Day 6

It's 4am. Do you know where your children are? If you're my parents, one of them is sitting in bed typing away...

I went to The Mohawk tonight to see Mothfight, an Austin band I've heard much about. They had a sort of noisy and dare I say Arcade Fire-type thing going on. The 3-D glasses they were giving out didn't really alter the movie playing behind them very much. Anyway, kudos for the effort.

The opening band, however, really blew me away. They're called The Noise Revival Orchestra Experience, and they're an eleven-piece band. There are horns and guitars and keyboards, multiple drum players... It was hard to see everything, and I only got to hear the last two songs- but those two songs were great. And they were all dressed up in Victorian garb, as was the theme of the night. It was really nice to see a band with such great songs and arrangements - and played by pros! At one point, they were all standing and singing together in a sort of eerie way, and it reminded me of Our Town.

I walked around in the Mediterranean festival for a bit beforehand. I wish I could have had some of the food, but alas, it's day 6 and I'm not really hungry. My face is getting clearer. That's the main thing I noticed today.

I put more cayenne in my drink today, because they juice I got from Daily Juice was a lot spicier than what I'd been making.

Day 5

Day Five of the Cleanse been pretty blah. I think I let myself get hungry this afternoon, and it's hard to recover once that happens. I didn't bring enough lemon stuff to work today and finished it all before lunch.

I could have come home and made some more, but decided to go to Guitar Center with my co-worker so he could play with drums. I looked for the f-hole Telecaster that I want, but they didn't have it- so I just played with pedals. I plan to sell my pretty cool Epiphone Dot and buy the guitar I was meant to play... eventually.

...and then I'll wanna play all the time, and I'll become the greatest guitar player ever, and I'll write a million new songs, and other people will want to play those songs, and I'll make millions of dollars without even having to work, and so on (for additional irony, see 'The Milkmaid And Her Pail' fable in right rail).

Music stores have always freaked me out. It's completely ridiculous that I feel that way. It's like I have a residual complex from high school when I felt super intimidated by all of the guys sitting around playing Zeppelin licks on different guitars. Of course now I know that those guys are more creepy than intimidating, but alas, I still feel weird in there.

I just finished my tea. My stomach is growling like crazy. I'm going to try to just sleep it off.

Day 4

Today's been a bit more blah than the previous days. I have less energy than yesterday, and I'm definitely hungry right now. I don't really want food, exactly. I just want my stomach to not be growling...

It's been a pretty good day nonetheless. No headaches or cravings or anything.

More Sputnik

There's another super cool Sputnik 50th Anniversary presentation in the Times. This one has a Flashy diagram of its insides. Neato. Sputnik in NYTimes

And Speaking of Communists...

There's a pretty neat interactive feature about Sputnik on Statesman.com today. There's all sort of fun stuff on there, like videos of the Explorer and Sputnik launches... Also, you can read press from the days surrounding the launch.
It's a pesky Flash app. and I can link to the specific page... but this deserves some typing time. Here goes.

From Oct. 6, 1957, The Austin American

Reds' Launching called 'Trespass'

CHICAGO, Oct. 6 -- James T. Mangan, who claims he founded the nation of celestial space, said today he will protest the Russian satellite launching as "an uprovoked trespassing into my territory."

Mangan, a 60-year-old public relations consultant of suburban Evergreen Park, said he will notify the Russians by letter of their "violations of his territory."

He homesteaded outer space Dec. 21, 1918, by declaring its existence and writing a charter. The charter was filed Jan. 18, 1919 in the Cook County (Chicago) recorder's office after a favorable legal opinion from the state's attorney.

Mangan named his frontier nation "Celestia" and said the trademark was approved a week or so ago by the US Patent Office. A year ago, he said, registration of the nation's grand seal was approved.

Asked whether he planned to shoot down the man-made moon, Mangan said, "The nation of celestial space works more on the principle of moral persuasion than force."

He added that he had applied for United Nations membership but was told the UN charter did not entitle him to it.

"If the Russians had asked permission to enter my space nation," said Mangan, "I might have granted it."

Day 4

I fell asleep before I made my tea last night, but did the saltwater thing this morning. I'm feeling a little weird today so far, and a bit hungry. I think I'll go to yoga and see if I can stretch it all out...

Day 3

Once again, today feels like a million bucks. I'm amazed that I have this much energy. I even went to happy hour with co-workers and didn't feel tempted to drink or eat despite the copious amounts of beer imbibed... I knew I had my beloved organic lemons waiting for me at home.

I'm super sleepy right now, but am going to make myself make my nightly tea.

...I WAS A COMMUNIST FOR THE FBI

In addition to being a lemonade junky, I am also an old time radio junky. I highly recommend the American Council for the Blind's Radio Treasure Trove.

Today, I got to hear an episode of one of my favorite shows, I Was a Communist for the FBI! This ridiculously wonderful early 50's era drama tells the story of undercover FBI agent Matt Cvetic, a loyal servant of all things American, who fools the evil Communists into thinking he's a loyal member of The Party. The best part about this show is that, though it takes place solely in the United States, all of the Communists have great Russian accents and outrageous 'Russian-esque' names like Comrade Johnsonovich or Comrade Mitchellslav. Apparently the show was actually (loosely, I assume) based on the experiences of a real guy named Matt Cvetic, and there was a movie, as well...
Click here to see the cool movie poster!

Day 2

Well, I haven't felt this good in a long time. My stomach is a little growly right now, but other than that things seem to be running pretty smoothly. And speaking of which, I'm brewing my fun little tea right now.

I just got back from seeing Josh Rouse at the Parish. I had heard him on Pandora and remembered writing his name down on countless scraps of you-should-look-into-this paper (the ones that get buried in the purse or under other stacks of you-should-look-into-this papers). Anyway, he ended up not looking anything like what I'd pictured. I'm amused that this can still happen to me, considering there's the interweb and all...

Anyway, aside from my initial shock of the relative lack of hipness on stage*, it was a good show. The band was super tight, especially the drummer (who could sing AND whistle and play a mean shaker), and Josh Rouse has a great poppy sort of Marshall Crenshaw thing going. The whole thing was a little bit slick for my taste, though (dare I say the drummer was a teeny bit jazzy for the first half), but the songs were excellent and one can't really complain about a great sounding band and great sounding sound... unless, of course, one likes a little grit... which I do.... a lot of grit actually. In fact, I could have done with quite a bit more grit. And some better stage antics. Granted, the last show I saw was The Flaming Lips last week in San Antonio, so I'm currently still spoiled in the stage presence category. Nonetheless, I just might buy a Josh Rouse album- the one with Quiet Town on it. Great song.

Anyway, I think bands should video tape themselves just like tennis players do. Nothing makes me want to vomit more than watching myself on stage. It's just not fun to watch a bunch of people just stand there and play songs. I know this. I do this. I've watched the tapes. It's boring as hell. Alas.

Time for bed.


*Bryan and I had a similar experience when we went to see Simon Dawes, another band discovered on Pandora, during SXSW last year. And, if I remember correctly, both Josh Rouse and the singer from Simon Dawes wore ugly gray vests. Come to think of it, both also shared a distinctly Paul Simon-esqueness about them, being shorter than I expected and having similar voices and so forth. And I complain about superficialness in the music world.

Day 1

I guess it says a lot about my usual eating and dehydration habits when I say: I don't feel that weird today.

My biggest problem so far has been quite psychological, really. I keep thinking, 'How am I going to pass the time without eating?' It's weird, because I don't typically devote much time to eating in the first place. But not eating at all? It's crazy talk. Not to mention not drinking or smoking... The weirder thing is that I have the strange recurring thought that I can fill up my time with... dancing. I'm not sure where in my completely repressed psyche that's coming from.

So anyway, the tea wasn't so bad last night. My stomach woke me up, as I was expecting, but the results weren't terribly gruesome or graphic. I can't say I wasn't a little disappointed. I wanted to start things with a bang.

I waited until this evening to do the Salt Water Flush, since I had to work today and wasn't sure how it would rear its ugly head. I mixed it up as soon as I got home (after stopping off to buy toilet paper, as we were out, ironically). The SWF (as the folks on the forums like to call it) is horribly disgusting to drink. Brackish really does evoke the correct image. I downed three-fourths of it in between gags and almost-pukes, and that's all I could stomach. I figure three-fourths is much better than two-thirds, and two-thirds is much better than one-half, and one-half is significantly better than a third, and a third is significantly better than one-fourth... etc. And this exact line of thinking (except in reverse order) was how I convinced myself to accept swallow after nasty swallow. I found that simple fractions seemed to keep my mind and gag reflexes distracted three-fourths of enough. Tomorrow I will try the quadratic formula.

Then I sat down to finish watching Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. I have to say, there's nothing like watching a bunch of ethically deficient evil business folks to help speed up the process of shooting large amounts of liquids out of one's anus.

So I guess that's about it for today. I'm just sitting here twiddling my thumbs and not ingesting anything. Perhaps I'll go sit in the sauna at the gym, as the coffeehouse is out of the question.

Oh wait. I did read an amusing little article today on a blog called The Faddist. This guy decided that perhaps ingesting 600 of anything liquidy would achieve the same Master Cleanse results. I can't say the thought didn't cross my mind.

Master Cleanse... Pre-Day 1

So I'm going to attempt the Master Cleanse. You know this thing, right?

It basically involves fasting for 10 days- drinking only a lemonade-type concoction during the day, a laxative tea at night and an apparently extremely nasty saltwater 'flush' in the morning. This combination of liquids 'cleans out the colon' and whatnot, leaving one's insides and outsides shiny and new.

I particularly like how the Wikipedia article on the subject refers to the saltwater flush as 'a large volume of lukewarm brackish water' that 'serves as a top-down enema'.

I am currently sipping my first cup of laxative tea (ever), and in the morning I will be imbibing my first dose of super-fun-sounding brackishness. Yum!

Dearest Bryan is out of town, and I have the whole house to myself. It's so quiet without the Pandora and random piano sounds emanating* from his room. I picture the next few days as follows: myself curled up in bed with Infinite Jest and Geulah, drinking my brackish liquid and writhing in pain for several days... then I have the Aha! moment. I see a faint vision of the Virgin Mary with a brackish tear streaming down her left cheek. She beckons me and I follow. She leads me to the bathroom where I sit and expel copious amounts of toxins. She uses her royal blue cape to wipe beads of sweat from my forehead. I instantly float upward, feeling to unbearable lightness of a squeaky clean colon...

And so on.

Well, with Smooth Move now ingested, I'll curl up and wait for something to happen.


*it freaks me out that I don't really have to know how to spell anything anymore.

From The Onion: Girlfriend Stops Reading David Foster Wallace Breakup Letter At Page 20

David Foster Wallace on Federer - Last Year's NYT

Federer as Religious Experience
Notes.

'This man has been showing off his gigantic rabbit named Herman.'

Roaches. Still.

My actual email to my landlord regarding our little kitchen problem:

Dear Insert landlord's Name-

X & X Pest Control came out to treat our rental house for roaches about a month ago, and our roach problem has not gotten better. Granted, I haven't seen as many large ones, but now there are lots and lots of smaller ones all over the kitchen. Whatever the Pest Control folks did, it didn't work. It's gotten pretty bad, especially at night. I turn on the light and can see them scatter. We are clean and do not leave food out. Nonetheless, every night I find roaches in the microwave, the dishwasher, the utensil drawer... basically in all of the various kitchen-related places one would not want to find them.

Should we call X & X and have them come out again, or is there something different you guys like to do in these cases (some sort of sealing or something)? We had already tried covering as many random cracks as we could with white duct tape, but that doesn't seem to be working.

Thanks for your help,
Me
insert my address
my email
my phone