The random musings of a slash addict.

My god, last night was insane. Gina and I "corseted up" and went bar hopping in downtown Lafayette. It never ceases to amaze me how many people ask us why we're dressed up, or if we're celebrating something. Last night we even got asked if we were going to a costume party. Do people really never do something just for the hell of it anymore?

Anyway, we were a sensation, as usual. We went to four bars in total, and had a fucking awesome time doing it. At the end of the night we ended up at The Muse, the only dance club in Lafayette. Soooo lame. There were maybe a dozen people there, only five of which were female. Poor Gina was so blasted out of her mind by that point that she spilled a drink on me and then offered to kick a guy's ass for calling me "Julia" (pronounced the Spanish way), because she thought he was calling me a dirty name. I somehow gained myself a fanboy, who kept grabbing my hands and saying, "Thank you! Thank you so much!" every time I danced with him. Then as we were leaving he sprinted across the room to thank me again. I have no idea what I'm supposed to have done for him, but I'm glad I could be of service. O_o

The iguana isn't sick. Apparently it's normal for them to shoot white, saline fluid several inches out of their nostrils. 0_o I was repaid for my concern for her welfare by having several, long scratches gouged into my arms, making me look like some emo cutter.

And then today I cut the fuck out of my thumb with my santoku knife. This was after the exam that I was up until 2:30am studying for, during which time I called the cops on my neighbors because they were stumbling drunkenly around their yard, having a loud and obnoxious party at nearly 1am on a weekday.

Tonight, I'm drinking a bottle of wine by myself and giving the rest of the world the finger.

Don's in Vegas until Monday, and Sean is camping in Michigan with his family. So if anyone has been dying to come to Lafayette, this weekend would be the time to do it. I'll be bored out of my mind, and there will be empty beds.

Don cracks me up. He can be so squidgy sometimes that it's unbearably cute. Like when I got home from a party the other night and he greeted me with a giant bear hug and said, "Don't die!" because he'd had a dream that someone shot me and woke up upset and I wasn't there to kiss it better. Or before he left yesterday for Indy to catch his flight, and he kept finding reasons to dawdle and procrastinate because he didn't want to leave me for five days. I <3 that man.

Taking the iguana to the vet in a couple of hours because for the last week or so she's been making this snorty, sneezing noise that we assumed was hissing due to stress. But yesterday I happened to be looking right at her when she did it, and a spray of clear liquid shot about seven inches out of her nose. So now I'm thinking less stress, more respiratory infection. >_>

I can officially say that the Top Chef contestants can lick my balls. No one on that fucking show can make creme brulee. It's a running joke in our house that creme brulee is the kiss of death on Top Chef. My first try making it tonight, and I nailed it. Perfect texture; velvety, soft and creamy. Not that it's that difficult, because it's just fucking custard. Seriously, heavy cream, sugar, vanilla, liqueur and egg yolks. Oh, look! You've made custard!

Chocolate creme brulee, though? Holy shit. Don hates custard normally, and he devoured his entire ramekin. I got about 2/3 of the way through mine and had to put it back in the fridge for later, it was so rich. Death by chocolate.

Honestly, though, our whole meal tonight was made of win. Chicken with Giada Delaurentiis' balsamic barbecue sauce (TRY IT!!!), baked potatoes with garlic salt and Mural of Flavor from Penzeys (if you want the best potato of your life, you will buy some) and grilled asparagus. And about a quarter mile from our house someone put on a giant fireworks display, and we watched from our front porch. Ahhh, good night.

Of course, when I've made up my mind to stay home this weekend, Peggy emails me to let me know that she'll be in Muncie. *sigh* I'm still staying home, but now I just feel shitty about it. Don and I are going to grill out and have a quiet night to ourselves.

Yesterday we went and picked out a suit for Don's lecture in Las Vegas next week. I'm glad I went with, because boys have no fashion sense. He wanted a pinstripe suit, and liked the first one he tried on, which was about two inches too long in the sleeves and completely shapeless in the waist. He looked like a little boy playing dress up in his daddy's clothes. Eventually I steered him toward a European cut, fitted jacked with a dark plum shirt and textured black and silver tie. His choice for a tie was all matchy-matchy with the shirt, and made me gag. The end result, though? Very smexy.

I went down to Castleton afterward and spent a few hours with Brad and his new girlfriend. Dropped a fat load of cash at Penzeys. Right now, I think the only staples in my spice cabinet that aren't Penzeys are oregano, thyme and rosemary, and when those run out they'll be replaced, too. We had some Handel's ice cream, which was incredibly, ohmyfuckinggod delicious.

I've decided to stay home this weekend. I've worked, volunteered or headed out of town the last three or four weekends in a row. I need this one to rest and spend some time with Don. I hate this whole working and going to school thing. We almost never see each other for longer than 15 minutes a day.

Speaking of, I'm quitting my job at the end of this summer! This is my final year, and I'm taking a heavy course load both semesters in order to graduate in the spring. And I've got to take the GRE. And I've got to raise my GPA another few points if I want to be competitive for vet school. In order to do all of that, I have to free up time and stress elsewhere. I can swing it with what I'm getting in loans/grants. Things'll just be tight.

But you have no idea how much of a relief it is to finally leave that place. No more drama and gossip, no more passive/aggressive bullshit from my boss, no more having to see research animals day to day. AND NO MORE CAGEWASH! EVER! AGAIN!

I don't think I'm mentioned this on here yet, so now I will.

Every year there is a convention called The Amazing Meeting. It's a gathering in Las Vegas of skeptics, scientists, professors and non-believers from around the world, held by James Randi. Randi is probably the most famous skeptic in the world, particularly for his $1 million challenge for anyone who can prove the supernatural. There are lectures and presentations of new and ongoing scientific research from every field imaginable, as well as celebrity guests such as Pen & Teller, Jamie and Adam of Mythbusters, etc. And every year there is a contest for your average, every day skeptic to submit a research paper for approval and the chance to present it to their peers at the convention. Guess whose fiance won the contest this year? ^_^

I'm so incredibly proud of Don. Not only will this be a great networking opportunity for him to meet high profile people in his various fields of study, but he also gets to put presenting his own independent research at a national convention on his resume.

Okay, I have this weekend off. I'm half and half on heading up to Muncie or having a quiet weekend at home.

Bonuses for Muncie: friends, booze, food, good times, laughing a lot.

Bonuses for home: sleep, relaxation, sleep, potential nookie, sleep.

Brad and Peggy making it up would be added bonuses to tip the scales in favor of Muncie. Brad, I know you said you had a barbecue to go to, but what's stopping you from heading up after?

Okay, now that the craziness is over, I can finally post pics.

( Iguana! )

Today has been suck. It didn't start off suck. Don and I went out to lunch together, which we rarely have time for these days. Then midway through lunch my phone rang, and I'm told that I'm getting an iguana in like three hours. Omgwhut? I don't have a cage, or bedding, or food, and I had to be at work in three hours! Arrgh!

So I tried calling off of work, but couldn't because the same bitch who calls off at least once a week had beaten me to it and I had to do her assignments for the day. I went in, busted it out in two and a half hours, and left early to hit the grocery store. I just sat down and my phone rang letting me know the iguana is on its way. She'll have to chill in the bathroom until 6:30, when I can go pick up the cage from Dr. Becker.

*breathes* But hey, bright side? Iguana!

The next time I henna my hair, I'm going really red. How red? This red. Been kicking around the idea for awhile now, and today browsing through pics I realized that Christina Hendricks and I have the same skin tone and general facial structure, and blue eyes. So if she can pull it off, so can I!

Nic is unhappy with me. He had a bad shed tonight and had some skin still left on his toes. He did not like me trying to get it off, so I soaked his feet in a shallow dish of water for about five minutes. Which he also did not like. I'm not sure if geckos are supposed to be able to make a squeaky, screechy sound. I've only noticed that he's been able to do it since "the eye incident". Which gives me a squelchy feeling in my belly.

I was driving home from work this morning, and heard an interview with Ryan Seacrest and the guy who plays Edward's father in Twilight. They were both making fun of Robert Pattinson for being paranoid about his fans. "Dude, it's an Iphone, not a gun!" Hur hur hur!

I think there's a problem here, because these people and people like them who keep insisting to this poor guy that he's overreacting don't seem to understand just how fucking crazy these fans are. He isn't running from photos and autographs, he is running from young girls and in some cases grown women who cannot distinguish him from the character of Edward Cullen. My god, they chased him into traffic and he was hit by a car just last week!

If you want to devote an afternoon (because you will, YOU WILL!) to educating yourself in the batshittery of these fans, head over to http://www.twilightsucks.com/forum/phpBB3/. Reading through that forum, you'll quickly see that Twitards are devoted in their fan worship. They approach strangers in the street to ask them if they have heard the Good News of Twilight. And this is not an uncommon experience; every other thread starts out with someone saying they were approached by a girl they didn't know and asked if they had read the books. Twitards are just a black tie and pressed white shirt away from founding their own religion!

And it doesn't stop there. These fangirls get aggressive and even frequently violent when they encounter someone who doesn't like the books. Read through this thread for some truly stunning wtfness. Slapped, punched, bitten, even choked, attempted stabbing, beaten with a bat and broken bones! Honestly, that is fucking terrifying! You just don't get this kind of behavior from Harry Potter fans. And we all thought the Harmonians were bad for telling JKR that she wrote her book the wrong way. Imagine if they'd taken to the streets with baseball bats and brass knuckles.

Twilight has gone from lulzy, harmless fangirl sensation to dangerously self-destructive obsession in my book. These girls are seriously disturbed, and have a very real disconnect from reality.

Yesterday was a great day. Aside from not getting enough sleep and feeling really cruddy for the first five hours or so, that is. After that, however, I had a blast and the rescue did remarkably well. ( Cut for length )

So I got a french manicure awhile back and was severely disappointed. I paid $20 for something that looked like a spider monkey attacked my fingers with a bottle of white out. Today I picked up a Nailene french manicure kit for eight bucks at Wal-Mart. It comes with strip guides and a little white pen. I found out pretty quickly that I do better just drawing freehand with the pen than using the strips, which don't stay down and white seeps under them. Even left-handed, I did a better job than the girl at the salon.

I can't wait to do my toes!

The anoles got adopted! Ahahahaha! No more annoying daily feedings, no more crickets, no more hunting for buried eggs!

I'm taking them with me down to the Scales and Tails event at the Indiana State Museum this Saturday, where their new momma will be waiting to pick them up. You all should come see me! It's $7 admission, and over 35 rescues will be there with some of their animals. Come on, it's worth seven bucks to pet dozens of puppies, kitties, snakes, lizards and rodentses, isn't it?

Don and I are so pathetic. We spend two days apart and cannot stop cuddling and saying "I love you" every five seconds.

I entered some cupcakes I baked the other day into a contest at bakebakebake. They're so delicious. The recipe is an adapted one I got from my grandmother. These taste like my childhood.

Also, thanks to that community, I obtained the recipe for Pot Butter. With which I will some day take over the world.

I finally got the pic out of Don's camera that I took of my mom's birthday cake that I made back in April that I was ridiculously proud of. I put it up on the Picturing Food blog. Also got an idea while I was browsing there today: Nutella frosting. Mmmm...

Speaking of cake, there's a new little bakery that opened up here that specializes in custom cupcakes. The Yellow Bowl Bakery. I tried to stop by and sample their wares the other day, but they had sold out by noon. That sounds promising! I'd really rather not make my own wedding cake, but I will if I have to. I hope this place is as awesome as it sounds.

You would think that, if someone told you that they wait for their S.O. to leave the house to sneak in certain foods, that it would be something very bad for them with a calorie count in the thousands, right? Not so in our house. The moment Don hits the door for a day out of town, Sean and I head to the store for fish and broccoli.

Last night we made gyro burgers, and they were made of epic win. The kind of epic win where you can only close your eyes and moan for a few seconds after the first bite. Recipe follows.

( OM NOM. )

A couple of weekends ago at my grandparents' 50th, we all went out to dinner afterward and my cousin's wife asked to see my engagement ring. She took one look and said in a conspiring sort of tone: "That's what I wanted." I was confused. If she wanted that sort of ring, why hadn't she told Eric that? So I asked her. "It's supposed to be a gift from him," she told me, as if that should be perfectly obvious.

Their relationship is full of weird little religious quirks like this. They got married super young because they were afraid they'd wind up having sex before marriage if they didn't. Her greatest ambition is to be a stay at home housewife, raising and homeschooling a brood of impressionable young minds without any of that secular garbage getting into their heads. And she thinks that a wife should be demure and allow her husband to make big, nasty decisions for her, since everyone knows a woman's realm is delegated to food, fabric and vacuuming.

The thing is, they're nowhere near that income yet, nor are they likely ever to be because Eric wants to be a youth pastor. So she's working as a nursing assistant, and will be for the foreseeable future. The reason she wanted my ring is the same reason I did: we wear a lot of latex gloves at our jobs, and they get caught and tear on traditional engagement rings. So now she is going to be stuck with a ring that makes her job more difficult because of some outdated, fundamentalist nonsense.

-Still happily atheist

Cosmo is full of shit. I think most women can stand behind that statement. However, as I discovered today when I was reading an article called "50 Things Guys Wish You Knew" while I was getting my pedicure, Cosmo fails even harder when a man is behind the keyboard.

Such gems like: "Asking me to ask another man for directions is like asking you to ask another woman for fashion advice."

Only, it isn't. Not even a little. Because, 1.) We totally do that already. And, 2.) Fashion is very much a personal opinion. Whether or not you are lost, or going to be an hour late, is not.

"If I'm not doing something the right way in bed, don't tell me what I'm doing wrong. Whisper suggestions in a seductive tone of voice."

Um, or! Or, I could say, "A little to the left." It's a lot faster, a lot more effective, and completely unambiguous. If your ego is so fragile that it cannot handle me being direct about what I want from you, you don't belong in my bed in the first place.

I realize that this guy doesn't speak for all men out there, but I've definitely run into this type in real life. One of my good friends is this guy in a nutshell. He cannot take direction, and actually told me once that if he's going down on a girl and isn't doing a good job, he expects her to just go with it. His reasoning for this was that he does the same thing when they aren't giving him good head, so he expects "the same courtesy in return". When I asked him why he hasn't tried actually talking to her and letting her know what he likes, he said, "Because I don't know." YOU ARE OVER 30 YEARS OLD! If you don't know what you want in a blowjob by 30, that is the saddest thing I have ever heard. Also, you're probably a lousy lay. Justsoyaknow.

That's what I love about Don. We have this great system where if I could be doing something better, he lets me know. And the same goes for me. And, guess what? We have great sex! Who'dathunk that the key to getting what you want in bed is communication?