Colored ink! It must be true!

Bad Wolf

2008-07-04T05:49:12Z

Miles Biked Monday: 40
Miles Biked Thursday: 25
Total: 291

:Squints at mile total. Shakes head:

Two weeks to rack up 200 more miles. I'm not that worried.

I'm shit at getting to bed at a decent hour. If I go to bed at midnight I can easily pull seven hours of sleep, but that never happens. I go back to my book or my music or the internet and suddenly it's 1:30 in the a.m. and work is looming large.

I haven't written a poem in almost three years, and today I finally shook off whatever metal block I'd had shoved in that area of my brain and got a first draft of something I actually like.

Brain filled with tapioca. Please try back later.

2008-06-27T04:12:52Z

Miles Biked Last Week: 83
Miles Biked Today: 35
Total: 226

I could have kissed the women who did my physical therapy evaluation. Answers. So many beautiful answers. And they gave me a routine of exercises to follow! I love that! I need that! If something is wrong or things go bat-shit crazy I need to be physically doing something. There's a reason my mom taught me how to needle point in kindergarten. She saw what kind of personality was wandering around the house and figured she better give me something to work all that nervous energy into.

So, yes. Stretches to do, leg exercises and 'hey don't do that for six to eight weeks' rules. Finally! The one down side is that I just earned my blue belt, but I have to drop karate for a while. It doesn't bother me as much as it should because if I listen to these women I've been told they can get me running again. I'd wear funny hats to work everyday if they told me it would get me running again.

I think I had a dream about Torchwood last night...but I can't remember what it was about except that Iano and Jack were both there.

Oh Captian Jack. The Doctor and Rose are incredibly cool, but you and the coffee boy own my heart.

The Swedish Language Haunts Me At Every Turn

2008-06-22T03:10:32Z

Kids you're never going to believe what I just discovered! Apparently if you have an iPod (which I now do) you can go onto the iTunes store (which I also have) and find these things called Podcasts that will put any number of foreign language lessons on your iPod....for FREE! (Shut up! It's my first day!)

Take that public library's collection of scratched up "Learn Insert Language Here In Your Car" CDs! I have a new god now! Finally! A way to continue with the Mandarin I started last year since they didn't have any Mandarin CDs at my library (though they had a plethora of Teach Yourself Swedish CDs. How very shocking).

On a much less exciting note; has anyone every gotten a cortisone shot? If offered the choice between physical therapy to take care of inflamed knee cartilage, and a cortisone shot which should you take? Or should you do both? And if so which one should you do first?

You know it's sad that I don't think I can ask the doctor these questions and expect to get a straight answer. Isn't that supposed to be the reason I'm paying him? Helpful answers about my health?

There's an orchestra inside of me and it plays in the devil's key

2008-06-12T23:00:24Z

Miles Biked Monday & Tuesday: 39

Total: 108

sam_can_do_it: Did you ever think that Dean Winchester is Eric Kripke's Mary Sue?
silverkit: I would have said Sam, because he's geekier, but now that I think about it, you're right. Dean makes a lot more sense.

silverkit @ 2008-06-08T16:35:00

2008-06-08T22:07:38Z

<i>Miles Biked: 28
Which brings total to: 69</i>

I spent my weekend in Chicago searching through the massive bookfair that took over Printer's Row. I love that part of Chicago. Not just because of the books, but because of the buildings and the architecture and all of it!

One of my favorite stands at the fair had wooden printing blocks from printing presses for sale, but it was a bit too much for my slim budget to buy enough letters to spell out my name or anything like that.

I really only went to see all the smaller presses that had their books on display. Borders had a stand, but I avoided it because I can always get to a Borders if need be. Being able to peruse a small chain that focuses on radical poetry, or women's writing or vegitarian cooking (no seriously. A whole stand with books on vegitarian cooking! Love it!) is much rarer and as available as the Internet has made a lot of things, I still prefer to hold things in my hand and look them over before I buy.

I almost bought Li Young-Lee's newest book of poetry, but figured I could find him again if needed to and the hardcover wasn't something I could really afford. I also debated over an autographed copy of Lisa Sees' Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (of which three women randomly told me was fabulous while I internally debated), because I adored her other novel Peony in Love. I decided against it in the end because half the fun of having autographed copies of books is going to meet authors and hearing them read their work aloud.

What I did end up getting is a few prints that I fell in absolute love with! This isn't the exact copy of what I have, but it's the same blue moon silk stocking woman that appears on the one I purchased.

Fortunately, we made it back to my friend's apartment before the crazy tornado warnings, but we still had to skip around the city under umbrellas to pick up our dinners and snag a movie.

Spaghetti, tiramisu, and a bottle of wine was a great way to end a day!

People Make My Head Hurt

2008-06-05T00:47:16Z

Just in case you needed something to make you bash your head against a wall I give you the story of one man's journey to donate LGBT themed young adult novels to a middle school!

The fun is this way!

The only up side to this is the cash of young adult queer themed novels I now have to go find. Because those are always cool.

The world is filled with shiny, shiny things

2008-06-04T05:01:55Z

Bike Shop Sales Boy: Now the cool thing about the model I'm showing you now is that the over all geometry of the bike allows for a more comfortable ride. The flat handel bars and the lower seat make it more of a road bike, perfect for the kind of ride your planning on, but you could also change out the tire model it comes with for a thicker rubber for more of a trail ride rather than a road ride.

silverkit: Oh my god! It's decorated with silver butterflies!

Bike Shop Sales Boy: Yeah, that too.

Top 200 Hot People

2008-06-03T02:45:30Z

Biked Today: 26 miles
Brings Total To: 51 miles

I need to go between 500 and 600 miles before the bike ride. 600 is the recommended distance, but they've upped it since last year, and I only did the 500 in 2007and was just fine.

After Ellen's list of the Top 100 Sexiest Women and After Elton's list of the Top 100 Sexiest Men are both up! I love these so much more than People Magazine or Maxium's lists.

Tina Fey secured the top spot on AfterEllen's list which is perfect considering that A)She's hot. B.) She's smart. and C) Willow Roseburg from Buffy has snuggly fantasies about her and Willow knows all.

And Ellen Page too! Yay Ellen Page!

Jensen Ackles made the top ten on After Elton, and Jared's on there too (Hells yeah!) I love that John Barrowman made it, though to be honest I don't really find him hot so much as I find him adorable. I look at him and think "must bake cookies for you" not "must get your shirt off."

"I’m thrilled with the results. Who wouldn’t want to come in behind Jake Gyllenhaal?" — John Barrowman, Torchwood

See adorable!

Then again Gareth David-Lloyd, when not playing Ianto (because Ianto belongs to Jack), sooo hot.

"I understand I'm underneath John Barrowman, which seems to happen quite a lot. Maybe, next year, Ianto can be on top." —Gareth David-Lloyd, Torchwood

Now make out!

2008-05-29T02:02:35Z

Mom: You know when I was a kid we didn't have a dish washer. We had to wash all our dishes by hand.

silverkit: Did you have to walk up hill, down hill and through the snow to get to the sink?

Dad: Snow! Ha! We would have been grateful for snow. We had fire!

My knees looks to be healing nicely, and not to jink it, but everything might be coming up Milhouse.

I took the bike out yesterday and went five miles. It went well enough, and so I went with my dad today for fifteen. There's not a lot of time until the RAGBRI to train, but I'm not out of shape. It's more that there are parts of my body that I need to toughen up. (a.k.a. my ass. No seriously, you've got to train your butt to be able to sit for that long and not kill for the rest of the night. Lance Armstrong eat your heart out). I think I should be fine come July, but the route this year is going to be tough. Last year they broke it up very nicely with 25 miles there and 50 miles here and oh look here's a 70 mile day, but this year looks to be longer routes with hills. Lots of hills.

I have to start looking for iPod speakers that I can attach to my bike. I won't be tagging along with the people dragging boom boxes behind them this year! No no! This year the people of Iowa will be forced to listen to any play list I desire!

Torchwood has completely stolen my heart. It's a fun, dark, sexy show, and there are also a lot of parallels that I think you can make with the Angel (except that Gunn and Westley never listened when I yelled "Now make out!" and Jack and Ianto have so Torchwood wins).

Pepper Potts is a PERFECT comic book name

2008-05-25T01:54:21Z

Iron Man I humbly welcome you to this spot on the shelf of awesome comic book movies. There is never any middle ground with these types of films is there? They're either amazing or shit.

I loved Pepper's freckles, and her hair! Cube job has given me a lot of compassion for assistants, and every time Pepper was trying to hunt down Tony for a signature or trying to get his schedule to run correctly all I could think was "I feel you sister!" I need an icon of Pepper with all those freckles, and I don't like Gwyneth Paltrow so that's an interesting urge for me.

ladybiue correct in saying that no one tops Robery Downey Jr. at playing a charismatic asshole. By the end of the movie I'd started to wonder if Tony was specially ordering his shirts so that all of them came with a hole in the chest.

A group of us got Indian food before hitting the theater. Sweet rice and nan are so addicting! Our poor waitress burned her hand before she brought us our order, and as we were listening to the yelling going in the kitchen in what I'm going to assume was Hindi (don't quote me I didn't fact check) sam_can_do_it said, "Well, I bet all of that translates to 'next time don't try to carry so many hot things at once!'"

I have officially finished watching both seasons of Torchwood. For some reason the entire cast reminds me of a huge black panther (Jack) being followed around by a cluster of of very determined kittens (everyone else).

I definitely saw a great deal of my personality reflected back at me via Tosh (which at several moments was a rather depressing realization), Owen grew on me, Jack is hard not to like, as is John, Gwen is....interesting and a bit all over the board, but Ianto is my hands down favorite.

Yeah, you better make way for them....

2008-05-22T02:49:15Z

Why won't you download faster season two of Torchwood?! Why!

I saw the most wonderful thing on my way home from work yesterday.

I was stopped at a red light right where the highway ramp connects to the road I take home, and I saw a mama duck (a hen, right? Female ducks are called hens?) followed by two little goslings who of course think it's a good idea to cross the road in front of five or six cars that can't see them during rush hour.

I'm a few cars back, and I'm sure that this is it. That light will turn green in two seconds, and they'll be toast, but then a man in a suite got out of his car. The guy started waving his arms, and yelling and kept all the other cars in place until the ducks crossed.

And just like that my faith in humanity was restored.

(And that need for someone to write fic where Ianto saves a bunch of ducks on his way to work was born)

I pissed off the thing that sits high atop the whatever

2008-05-20T00:32:28Z

On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.
Virginia Woolf

Unfortunately for me, that observent fellow lives inside my head.

I took a tumble off my bike today. Hit a wet patch in the road, went down hard, and landed...on both of my knees.

silverkit : 4281hfeowpry!!!^&****$$$
Snarky Inner Monologue: Wow, all 145 pounds of you just landed on your knee caps! Right on the bones! Isn't this ironic?
silverkit: Ow!
Snarky Inner Monologue: Let's be all stolid and steady about it. It's not that much blood. Stand up and walk it off. You'll be just like John Wayne.
silverkit: :SOB:
Snarky Inner Monologue: Or...you can do that crying thing. That works too.

Well, yeah he's got soft lips. Duh.

2008-05-16T04:21:53Z

OK, focusing solely on the "Whoo hoos!" of the day it breaks down like this:

-Gay Marrage Ban Struck Down In California! It's a start!

-I do not need surgery on my knee! Nothing is torn, but there is some inflimation under the knee cap. I start going to physical therapy (as soon as I sign up that is), and this will hopefully solve the problem. It's too late to sign up for the Chicago Marathon :kicks rock dejectedly:, but I've still got the RAGBRAI. The marathon will be there next year.

-Supernatural Season Finale: YAY! SOB! JOY! WHOO! YAY! again followed quickly by SON OF A BITCH!

-Finished Peony In Love by Lisa See which was full of women's writing, and discussion of women's writing, and ancient China, ghosts and love and....yeah ok the page or so of descriptive foot binding made me want to throw up and then punch random walls, but the book as a whole is awesome-cakes!

-Kahlua cake. Kahlua cake people!

Dad! Tom Cruise won't come out of the closet!

2008-05-13T02:23:10Z

Mom: You know honey, we'd really love it if you moved your bed out of your closet.
Brother: I like my bed in the closet.
Me: Well, you've got to be careful. You don't want to roll over and fall ass first into Narnia.
Mom: .....
Brother:....
Dad:......
Me: Whoops! Sorry, wrong crowd.

I've really started to enjoy listening to books on CD while driving to work. What's funny is that I first started doing this when I was temping at the place where I now have my cube job. To pass the time they would allow me to bring my headphones in and I listened to a wide variety of books. It's just like being in sixth grade and getting story time all over again.

Hablo, hablas, habla, hablamos, hablan....

2008-05-11T05:10:22Z

Hello, Doctor Silbermann. How's the knee?

Sarah Connor
Terminator 2

The MRI I had yesterday was open, and due to the location of the irritation my knee went in first, but it still isn't a procedure I'd like to repeat anytime soon. The better part of my chest was under a large disk, and the claustrophobia, while not horrible, was still present.

I just kept picturing the desert, the Grand Canyon, all the fields and areas I saw years ago on a trip to Arizona. It helped until the last photo when the image started slipping. Photos take about five minutes each, and that was about when I started conjugating all the Spanish verbs I could remember, and listing all the different words for members of ones family in Chinese.

It's very calming.

I was down in my old stomping grounds for the day watching my brother graduate. (I'm so proud!)

It gave me the chance to visit my favorite used book store. It was really cool that the owner remembered me from two years ago, and their new location is amazing! I love being able to sift through the piles on the floor (because 'alphabetical order' is really more of a suggestion than a rule in places like this), and I found Magic Steps another Tamara Pierce novel in hardcover to add to my growing collection as well as a illustrated version of Sense and Sensibility, Don Quixote, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Other Boleyn Girl...there are a few others, but I'm too tired to type them all.

Tried my best to find a copy of Les Miserables but no dice. Couldn't shake a foot without poking a copy of A Farewell to Arms in the ass, but no Les Miserables.

Books!

2008-05-04T05:44:51Z

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you read for school, underline the ones you started but didn't finish (or are on the shelf waiting for a free week).

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield

You're trying to tell me that there are people who buy Neil Gaiman books and don't try to read them on the car ride home?

What's funny is that yesterday I was thinking about how I never finished Les Misérables, and want to give it another go.

Just as soon as I read the one million and eight other books on the list.

Fun with LJ

2008-04-30T22:49:29Z

Yoinked from thirdsouthobbi

Reply to this blog with your name.

Once you do that, this is what I'll do for you...
1. I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I'll pick a flavor of jello to wrestle you in.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me. (if possible!)
5. I'll tell you my first memory of you.
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll ask you something I've always wondered about you.
8. If you do this you MUST post this on yours. You MUST

What would NPH do?

2008-04-30T00:58:28Z

An animated movie with Neil Patrick Harris as the voice of the Flash, David Boreanaz voicing Hal Jordan, and Lucy Lawless as Wonder Woman. Oh, you better believe I'm going to rent that baby.

I have to go pop my Torchwood cherry now.

Bottoms (or whatever you prefer) up.

I want security demons....

2008-04-28T03:50:43Z

The comic Runaways is so addicting. And the best part is that it's far enough along that I'm able to pop back the graphic novels like they're mini Milkeyways.

Written by Brian K. Vaughan and later picked up by Joss Whedon, strong females, characters of color, kick ass humor, a lesbian, a cubby chick who is not only smart as hell but getting some, guest appearances by A/B and C string superheroes from the Marvelverse. Good lord what's not to like?

....Karolina comes back eventually, right?

Seriously, Karolina in Runaways, Dr. Mann and Rose in Y the Last Man, Willow, Satsu and Kennedy in Buffy, Batwoman...I'm getting spoiled.

If I walk into a comic store and shout "Where are all my queer ladies at?!" we'll all know what's to blame.

SPN: 3.?

2008-04-26T01:18:43Z

So, yeah the new SPN episode...I'm really glad my VCR taped correctly and I didn't have to buy it off iTunes.

Well, at least I have another episode to reference when I write that imaginary paper, "Gay People Are Scary!: The Representation of Homosexuality/Bisexuality in Supernatural."

:head desk, head desk, head desk:

Ok, but let's pretend for a moment that I can remove the lame (LAME) gay jokes, and the annoying "minority character heroically saves the ass of all other other Average Joes, but ends up dead himself" cliche, and shine a light onto the things I did like about this episode.

-First off, Sam and Dean! Huzzah! You're back, and you brought classic rock with you!

-Corbett and Maggie. I want to take Corbett and Maggie out for drinks. Of the Ghostfacers they were the only two I really liked. Other camera guy had such a bit part that I can't remember his name, and Harry and Ed are good in small doses, but I didn't need a whole episode with them as the focus.

-Sam and Dean swearing! I LOVE the swearing. Also, did anyone else notice that the word "ain't" has wiggled its way into Sam's lexicon? I don't think I've ever heard him use that before, and it's a nice look at how far he's come from the beginning of the show when he was at Stanford. As a college student he probably never used it A) Because he's Sam, and didn't used it even before he got to college because it's not "proper" English and Sam's nerdy like that. B)Because when you're trying to fit into an uppity-up school on the west coast you would drop that word like a hot potato. Or at least I believe Sam would.

-The actual ghost was very creepy, and the party scene chilling. Also, Sam in a party hat!!

-Sam, in a PARTY HAT! (It bore repeating)

-Sam getting violent like and throwing the chair against the wall while reminding Dean he's only got two months left.

-Dean getting to say "Sammy" in that very worried Dean voice he has, and completly side-steppping the confession part of Reality T.V. I missed you Dean.

This episode was..interesting, and had a few laugh out loud moments (gay love can pierce the vale of death, eh. Ok, who's writing the Brokeback Mountain crossover where Ennis is being hauted by Jack and Sam and Dean show up?) but I'll bet when I rewatch the DVDs one day I'll skip over it.

Next week though. Next week looks sweet!

Everyone lived in a pretty how town....

2008-04-22T02:04:07Z

Screw beer. Wine is proof that God loves us.

I've just discovered Kris Delmhorst, a singer who made an entire CD with songs based off of poems. She's very folky. I like that.

I always get really goofy and happy when something like "Oh man. I've got Pretty How Town stuck in my head again" runs through my brain. Because there's an e.e. Cummings poem, that has been put to music stuck in my head! How awesome is that?!

I'll throw the poem my favorite song on the CD uses out for National Poetry Month:

THE SCARE-FIRE.
by Robert Herrick

WATER, water I desire,
Here's a house of flesh on fire ;
Ope the fountains and the springs,
And come all to bucketings :
What ye cannot quench pull down ;
Spoil a house to save a town :
Better 'tis that one should fall,
Than by one to hazard all.

Look! It's Kristen Bell in that one..thing she did..with what's his face

2008-04-19T22:24:22Z

A Hanna Montana song set behind various horror movie clips. The important thing is that it tickles me I suppose.

Vampires better not steal my donation....

2008-04-16T01:12:16Z

Nurse: Well, your veins just don't want to come out do they?
Me: Yeah, sure. Just get it in already!
Nurse: Here we go! It's tiny, but it's a pumper.
Me: Good for me. I'm just going to hum New Found Glory songs until your done.

Every time I give blood there are Iced Ginger Snaps waiting for me after. I love these cookies. They are the nice reward I receive for doing something I hate, hate, hate. I HATE giving blood. I hate the pin prick, and the needle in my arm, and the fact that my veins like to play hide and seek with the nice nurse who's trying to draw from me so it takes three or four pokey-pokes to find them.

And yet, I always sign up because if I didn't some day down the line I'll be in the hospital needing blood, and karma will be there to bite me in the ass.

Have I mentioned that I also hate watching my own blood get sucked through a twisting and turning tube like it's a god damn kiddy straw!

Oh that note. Here's a poem by Emily Dickinson!

They shut me up in Prose-
as when a little Girl
They put me in the closet-
Because they liked me "Still"-

Still! Could they myself have peeped-
And seen my brain -go round-
They might as wise have lodged a Bird
For Treason-in the Pound-

Himself has but to will
And easy as a star
Abolish his Captivity-
And laugh-No more have I-

Taking ones hand

2008-04-15T02:34:14Z

The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.
-History Boys

I love it when nonfiction books from the library have highlighted passages. It's an odd thing to admit, because not only would I never be able to do such a thing to a library book, but I would rip your kidnys out if you returned one of my books in such a state, but I like to see it in library books. It makes me feel connected to the world at large. I like that there's evidence of someone else opening his book and absorbing all of its information. It makes me wonder about this person. Were they writing a paper? What was their topic? Their argument? What were they looking to find, and did the search end in success?

Some times that connection to the outside world via yellow highlighter is what gets me through the day.

Season one rocked, season two didn't, season three...well

2008-04-12T22:16:01Z

Dear series finale of Veronica Mars-

That's your closing act? Seriously? Season three you did so well in the beginning, and then you just hit some kind of tailspin. What the hell happened?

-Hearts and flowers
silverkit