A (really exciting–no, really) recap.

The last few days have been, well, in the words of a close friend's Dutch ex-lover, to express his dissatisfaction of all things unpleasant, great or small: Not so nice.

All of the flowers in the house were dying. My strawberry plant attracted giant, juicy green aphids so it got thrown away. i bent my thumbnail backward trying to pry a sticky label off of something. My scanner was uploading crap-quality photos (read: GRAINY AS ALL HELL). i didn't leave the house all day on Friday. That's probably where it went all wrong. Wasn't meant to be inside all damn day.

Additionally, that morning, before he went to school, Nat and i were talking about the never-ending search for a New Earth, so my mind was somewhere else all day... why are people so obsessed with finding life on other planets? i asked him. What possible benefit could this have for our species? There is already enough existential angst to last for each generation to come; endlessly strengthening and refreshing with each new crop of mature, thinking minds; asking the eternal question: why are we here?

Do we really think that adding more life to the scale will help? If anything, this will throw our whole precarious balance out of whack. Going from a big fish (in a huge, infinitesimal sea of space) to a small fish (in the same giant, endless sea of stardust) will cause major damage to the collective human psyche, in my humble opinion. i'm just not sure it would be such a good thing.

Granted, it would be absolutely astonishing, and awesome, to know that we are not "the only ones". And perhaps it would even add a little perspective to our humdrum existence, filled with piddly little problems that we bend and stretch and inflate to become exponentially larger and more serious that they actually are... knowing that there is life on other planets might make things like stubbing your toe or dropping your ice cream on the sidewalk seem a little less infuriating. (also see above, re: yesterday's "problems".) i guess i just feel like we should really be able to accomplish that point of view now, here, in the current time, without needing something to chop us down to size first.

And it would certainly help to bring some of the people with some pretty foolish ideas back down to reality, or at least i hope so. One of my main hopes for a discovery of life (even a bacterium!) on another sphere hinges on the hopeful result that perhaps it would shatter people's ideas of a Biblical Earth, one that was created a mere few thousand years ago (seriously, folks?).

The only thing that saved me on Saturday was a long, chilly bike ride and a playlist of good songs i hadn't listened to in awhile. There was finally almost a half of a moon, so i could see where i was going while listening to "Bonnie and Clyde" (Serge Gainsbourg), "Rockers to Swallow" (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), and "I Got a Woman" by Ray Charles.. i felt nary a bump along the way, which is unusual. Sort of like flying. Plus afterwards i met Nat at a café and we walked home together later, stopping along the way for some after-hours swinging in a school playground. Never fails to give me butterflies... Same reason i love roller coasters, or big dips in the road. i live for that stomach-lurching feeling. Maybe that's why we're all here. Gotta be.


This morning, though, i went through an altogether less-wondrous stomach-lurching experience: the harrowing Buttermilk Affair. It was a pancake day (too many bananas, leftover buttermilk and miniature chocolate chips from another baking project), so i busted out the buckwheat flour and started heating up the cast-iron. i was listening to the radio and drinking coffee– all was going smoothly, right on schedule, which is important when you are making pancakes. Everything has to come together at the right time, otherwise you end up with an Inferior Flapjack. The melted butter was too warm for the cold buttermilk when i combined them, so i ended up with huge clumps of congealed butter clusters, which is absolutely no bueno. Because my (thirty-year-old?) microwave is on the fritz, i placed the Pyrex measuring cup directly on the electric range, which of course you are NEVER SUPPOSED TO DO.

But folks, i've done this countless times. And with less substantial glass containers, i might add. Today i was in a rush, however, trying to avoid the griddles overheating. So the temperature was up high– too high. Before the butter was even melted, the glass measuring cup popped in a startling display of glass shards and milk specks, a horrible sizzling and gagging stench following immediately afterwards.

Question: have you ever spilled buttermilk on a hot electric burner? It is fucking foul. There, i said it. It is hours later at this point, and i am still not stalwart enough to get in there and clean it up, because i am afraid of that smell singing my nosehairs once more. In any case, the pancakes were delicious enough, but now i have to buy a new measuring cup.

::yawn::

most....boring...and conflicted...post...ever!