One Year Ago

(original post)

Not So Neutral

I tend to stay off politics on my blog, mostly. I'm a big fan of dialogue between people with different beliefs. I think that tolerance isn't really tolerance, unless it includes the people you think are intolerant. As a generally raging liberal, I'm dismayed by the massive generalizations I hear other liberals making about people who don't vote or philosophize or believe as they do. I can never get my brain around how our generalizations and judgments are less intolerant than the generalizations and judgments of those who have different beliefs than us. You know?

So while I do tend to take a Democrat party line on most issues, I try to listen as much as proselytize. But on one issue I get fairly emotional, and that's gay marriage. The status of gay people has changed massively in my lifetime. From something that was rarely spoken about when I was a kid, we now have openly gay public figures, and increasingly equal rights for gay partners. I am very happy about this. I'm not happy about the fact that my gay friends and relatives and business associates can't get married in Texas (and possibly California). That their rights are restricted legally and socially.

Homophobia, like any fear of the "other" is something that tests our humanity daily. As human animals, we fear what we don't understand or what we perceive threatens us. As human beings, we have the ability to transcend those impulses and connect to our kinship with all humans. (And I can't personally conceive of a God who doesn't intend that we do just that.) Our recent election showed us and the rest of the world that human beings can evolve and change. That long held, deep prejudice can be replaced with acceptance and love.

So when someone tells me that gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry, or that being gay is a choice, or it's immoral, I think of the people I love who are gay. I have several close friends who have been essentially married to their partners for a decade or more. So to me, it's like saying, "Your friend, who is in love and happy and leads a fulfilling life, should to be alone or celibate or should force themselves to be with someone who they can never truly connect to. Your friend doesn't deserve to be happy because I'm uncomfortable with the fact that they are gay."

That's what I hear, and I just can't stomach it. It's not a broad social issue to me. It's about the happiness of the people I love, and a deep sense of confusion about how other people I love would wish such a thing upon them. I know that in most cases homophobia isn't personal. But for me, it always will be. I'm incredibly lucky to have the happiness and love and acceptance I experience in my marriage, and I can't conceive of wishing less for anyone else in my life.

Anyway, to wrap up my tirade on a slightly wittier note, here's an all-star cast from Funny or Die bringing you "Prop 8 - The Musical":

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Saying Goodbye to Color

We bought our camera last year in late December, and there was precious little color to photograph until March. I've been combing the parks and neighborhood for the last vestiges of color, mostly in the form of turning leaves, in preparation for the long (okay not so long) months of winter, when I'm going to have to find some other photo subjects. People? Cityscapes? I'm open to suggestions. Here are some samples of my last few shoots:

Belated Update

A few weeks ago David and I took a short vacation in the hill country. We stayed at a farm near Blanco, called Juniper Hills Farm. It was just what we needed - remote, peaceful, quiet, packed with plants and wildlife (there was a bird convention out our window) and included tasty baked goods. The little cabins have microwaves and fridges, so if you're resourceful, you can pack enough food in to avoid having to go out for all your meals. They also provide you with milk, juice, granola, snack mix, and hot baked goods in the morning.

I brought enough food to feed us for a week (we only stayed two nights), and discovered that all the non-chocolate products were in low demand. I did manage to kludge together dinner the first night thusly:

Kohlrabi Goat-Cheese Prosciutto Pasta

8 oz farfalle
1 lb kohlrabi (roots only)
1/2 c goat cheese
garlic
olive oil
salt
pepper

Pre-cook the pasta, drain, rinse with cool water, and lightly toss with olive oil to keep from sticking. Peel and cube the kohlrabi, and toss with minced garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Roast on a parchment-covered cookie sheet for about 40 min (give or take) until soft and lightly golden.

To construct pasta: reheat both the pasta and the kohlrabi in the microwave. Layer thusly: pasta, crumbled goat cheese, kohlrabi, and finely sliced proscuitto or serrano ham, two slices per plate.

Nom!

We also went to Pedernales Falls, wandered around Wimberly, and had lunch at the the Silver K Cafe in Johnson City. It was a cool place, and the food was very tasty. And now, the photos.


View from the window of our cabin.


Juniper


There were lavender patches covered with butterflies.


Also, donkeys!


Lavender


Husband relaxing.




Pedernales Falls

Holding my breath until Wednesday

Happiness Challenge

Cortney posted this on her blog, and I'm going to take up the challenge because I think it's a great idea to think about what makes us happy:

Post 10 things that are going right in your life right now. I don't care how small. You're happy with your cup of coffee. You saw a flock of geese flying over. ANYTHING. Things that make you happy. Things that make you smile. Go:

1. Napping with my terriers
2. Being married to David
   
3. Running my own company
4. Doing work that helps people understand themselves and each other with more compassion
5. Bellydancing
6. Cooking with my CSA vegetables
   
7. Getting better at photography
8. White chocolate mocha and breakfast empanadas at Fair Bean Coffee
9. Remembering to meditate
10. Having great friends

Let me know if you post a list on your blog!

More Eye Candy

When David and I went to the park to take that last batch of photographs, there were a bunch of lotus flowers in the pool in the parking lot, but they were all closed. I went back yesterday with the D300 and macro lens and got some amazing shots. It's hard to take a bad photo of a lotus flower, they are so lovely.









A few other fun pictures:

Bokeh Eye-Candy

I've become obsessed with a photography style called "bokeh". It's macro photography, generally, which utilizes a large apeture (shallow depth of field) which results in your subject being very sharply in focus, and the background as blurry as possible. The smoother, the better. The people who are really good at it frame their shots so the composition of the subject, and the contrast with the background is almost like a visual haiku. I'm not at that level yet, but some of my attempts are not so bad:















I'm keeping track in a set you can see here.

But if you really want to see the masters, check out these people:
Naro

okiraku_diver

Yochi

*Sakura* Her stuff is AMAZING. Check out the frog and ladybug sets, particularly.

Capitalism as Religion

I've thought for a long time that the concept of the free market as a higher truth has reached biblical proportions. Some of my teachers in school, a lot of business people I know, and obviously our current administration seem to believe that if we allow our economy to function independent of regulation this "best possible world" Utopia where the greatest good for the greatest number would be the result. I've observed that this belief is often as dogmatic as any religious belief, and exists across many demographics.

I think any "perfect" ideology - socialism, capitalism, libertarianism - while really interesting from a philosophic standpoint, is doomed to eventual failure when it becomes dogmatic and inflexible. The world, societies, economies and other large systems are complex and diverse. It's the very flexibility of our system that allows it to remain intact during drastic internal and external change.

The Colbert Report picked up on the Capitalism as Religion theme:


Glad to know it's not just me. And he's way funnier.

Suffering and Compassion

Due to some interesting tricky circumstances in my life of late, I've given a lot of thought to who I really am, and what I really have to contribute. Being a business owner takes tremendous energy, and selling my services and expertise takes not only energy, but conviction. Without conviction, it sucks your will to live. Seriously.

For me, conviction comes from being as authentic as humanly possible in how I present myself, what I have to offer, and what I value I believe it brings. Maybe there are people can sell anything to anyone, but I can't.

Getting to this point is the result of many years of soul-searching, study, and most importantly, making lots and lots of mistakes. Often, those mistakes cause me to suffer. Sometimes things I totally can't control cause me to suffer. And sometimes my own way of dealing with the world causes me to suffer.

I worry a lot. I worry mostly about how other people feel, and how what I do or say affects them. I worry about the things I can't control like sickness and death, and the things I can, like money and relationships. Worry is really just another word for fear. I experience fear pretty regularly. Being me, and not anyone else, I have not idea of the amount of fear I feel is "normal" or not. I suspect that feeling it is, but admitting it is not.

I've found that some people react badly when I'm transparent about the fact that I experience fear or anxiety. I find this strange. The leaders I most admire are the ones that are open about their frailty, their weaknesses, and their fears. I feel I can trust someone who admits they are human, admits that they make mistakes. I don't trust the people who say they have the answers to questions that only I can answer for myself, and people who claim to know more about me than I know about myself.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I believe that fear, which is a form of suffering has value. We live in a society where emotions like fear, shame, sadness, and despair are considered undesirable at best. But these emotions are part of the palate of our experience. Imagine if food was only salty or sweet. Would we enjoy a lemon bar if it wasn't a little sour? Or a grapefruit if it wasn't a little bitter? If music was only consonant and harmonious, we'd be listening to the Grateful Dead for all eternity, and Stravinsky never would have composed The Rite of Spring (that actually sounds like the third ring of Hell to me).

And so I believe it is with suffering, and yet we brand those who can't hide or escape their suffering as depressive, codependent, reclusive, or anti-social, as if we ourselves do not all experience those feelings too. How much harder is it then for those who seek help coping with suffering to find the courage to ask? And how narrow is our definition of what is healthy? I sometimes think that while diagnosis of mental disorders is immensely helpful for alleviating suffering, it also has been misused as a way for us to externalize emotions that are inescapable and innate to the human experience.

I've run across a number of people in my life who essentially told me that I suffer/think/fear too much, and to get over it (often with dire pronouncements about my fate if I fail to take their advice). And then they told me exactly how to do this (usually by emulating them). I have always found these exchanges disconcerting and kind of scary. I try so hard to be empathetic and open that sometimes I let people in way further than is healthy for me, and when I get scared sometimes I can temporarily lose my ability to draw healthy boundaries.

This has happened a couple times in recent years, and in spite of the fact that I have much better boundaries and self-esteem than I used to, it's still thrown me for a loop. It's gotten me thinking about my emotional world and its value to myself and to others. There is no doubt, I tend to worry, and when things upset me I often hang on to them for a while. If I'm feeling anticipatory of some unpleasant event, I'll imagine possible scenarios even though I can't predict what is actually going to happen. When something bad happens, I'll often replay it mentally, imagining how I could have prevented or changed it. When my feelings are hurt, they hurt a lot, and it sometimes takes a while for the physical symptoms to leave my body. Basically, I feel things very strongly.

But here's the thing: I don't think that feeling things strongly and struggling with fear is bad or wrong. Is it pleasant? No, not really. But does it have value? Absolutely.

The fact that I struggle with these feelings and behaviors means that I experience them fully. I don't just taste fear, I chew on it, go for a swim in it, and take it out to the movies. I know the dimensions and colors and smell of my fears, and that means that when I see someone else suffering from fear, I know how hard it is for them, and I also have faith that they can get past it. Because I do, every day. Every time I fully face my fear, or guilt, or shame, or sadness, I get a little nugget of compassion for myself. And those nuggets become the ground upon which I continually realize how little separates me from other people. We all suffer. The First Noble Truth of the Buddha is suffering. And without suffering, there would be no compassion, and no joy, and no love.

So the next time someone tells me I'm neurotic, and difficult, and that I should just "get over it" or "let it go", I'm going to remember all my feelings have value. I'm going to remind myself to have faith in my internal process. That fully experiencing uncomfortable emotions is courageous, not weak. That compassion, one of my core values, means connecting to others through our shared humanity, which includes suffering. And that my ability feel compassion for that suffering is a gift, not a disease.

Underwater Eye Candy

David took a dive trip to the Flower Gardens in the Gulf of Mexico this week. He brought our D300 with it's underwater casing for the first time, and took some pretty amazing photos. Enjoy!

Observiness

That's my new favorite word.

Much to David's dismay, we're watching the Democratic Convention. I've been watching it more for the imagery and symbolism - what they're not saying, what the visuals are trying to convey. Because Obama's campaign has been so brilliant from a branding standpoint - both the messaging and the imagery, I've had pretty high expectations. But until the latter half of tonight (day 2), most of it has been pretty canned. Michele Obama was very poised and appealing, but I enjoy her interviews more than her speeches.

Deval Patrick, however, rocked my world. He was way better than the keynote speaker. And the Hilary retrospective was seriously intense. As a female entrepreneur trying to find entry into what is still a very masculine world, it was moving to see an unapologetic tribute to a woman's strengths and trials. As a consultant it's my job to tailor my message - to use language my clients respond to - and that often means stripping out emotional or feminine language. Hilary, for all her faults, is unapologetic for her femininity, and I find that very inspiring. Her speech was pretty powerful, barring a few silly one-liners.

--------------

Now that the whole thing is over, a few more observations. The final night was a serious spectacle. That was more what I expected from Obama. Heavy on the symbolism, rock concert intensity. Add to that an acceptance speech that was probably the most literate I've heard in my lifetime.

The first couple days were patchy, and had that 1980s Academy Awards look to them. But Bill Clinton and Joe Biden were pretty fiery, and Obama's walk on got everyone amped for the finale.

The last night was this crazy epic spectacle. Much more what I would expect of the candidate with the most badass political candidate website ever. Massively theatrical. I thought Obama's speech was pretty amazing. I really hope he wins the election, especially in light of McCain's ultra-conservative VP pick.

Food Porn

David and I went to Hudson's on the Bend for dinner tonight. Highlights:

• Amuse-Bouche: coconut fried shrimp in a lime-coconut shooter
• Appetizer: smoked duck breast, jicama, jalapeno, figs wrapped in bacon with red chili glaze dipping sauce
• Entree: american bison stuffed with spicy venison sausage on a 3 bean ragout with chipotle bbq sauce

O. M. G. That was some good food.

Saraphina Nancy Oster

My new niece made her grand entrance yesterday. She was expected to be early and small, but instead she was two days late, over 20 inches long and over 7lbs! The new family is doing well and looking forward to coming home. I can't wait to meet her!

1001 Uses for Squash

We're drowning in squash. A few months ago we decided to get a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) subscription. What this means is once I week I go pick up a big box of fresh veggies, and some fresh eggs. This has created all sorts of interesting culinary challenges. Mostly, how do two people eat several pounds of vegetables in one week? Here are our main survival tactics:

• Share it- there actually is a limit to the amount of arugula, kale, and okra (there's a very low limit for okra) that we can eat, so we spread the wealth.
• Pork and Cheese - everything can be cooked with some form of pork (bacon, prosciutto, ham) and cheese (feta, parmesan, cheddar).
• Stuff it - it turns out several food types can be adapted to different veggie and herb combinations. We've done crepes, fritatta, pasta, quiche...

This month's challenge is summer squash. Yellow, crookneck, pattypan, and zucchini are overflowing in the fridge, and I've had to find all sorts of interesting ways to use it. Turns out zucchini can be used in chocolate cake, for reals. Turns out it really sucks in chocolate chip cookies. I found some creative ways to use it in other stuff too. For example, if you grate it really fine, and press out most of the water, you can use it in pancakes! Seriously, it's really good. I also grate it coarser and put it in potato pancakes - using about half potatoes and half zuccini (squeezed out in cheese cloth), combined with chopped onion, fresh sage, a couple eggs and some flour. Then I pan fry it until golden and serve with low fat sour cream and smoked salmon. Yummy! Here are a few of my other favorite recipes so far:

Sauteed Baby Squash with Basil and Feta
Shrimp and Squash Penne
Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Stay tuned, next month we'll be swimming in sweet potatoes!

100 Things

I keep seeing these "100 Things" lists on people's blogs. I could pretend that I don't like to talk about myself and am too modest to try to come up with one, but that would just be silly. So here goes:

1. My first name is Heather.
2. I tested out of high school when I was 15 and went to community college for a year before starting at SF Conservatory of Music where I got 2 degrees.
3. I hate pineapple.
4. I don't like to cook anything that takes more than an hour of prep.
5. I make a mean crepe.
6. I scored 158 on the LSAT.
7. I take reasonably good macro photography with a Nikon D300.
8. I suck at math.
9. Some days I'm an INFJ, some days I'm an ENFJ.
10. In college I sang a master class with Thomas Hampson, and he made me take my shoes off.
11. I have two masters degrees (so far).
12. I auditioned a role in the movie Dangerous Liaisons when I was 15. I didn't get it, Uma Thurman did.
    
13. I loved junior high and hated high school.
14. I love corgis and terriers, but I hate poodles and cocker spaniels.
15. I think Brain Candy and Zoolander are works of genius.
16. I've watched the five hour mini-series version of Pride and Prejudice in one sitting at least five times.
17. I love Jane Austin adaptations. That includes Clueless. And the Bollywood one.
    
18. I read books multiple times until they fall apart, and then I get new copies and read them some more.
19. I'm scared of cockroaches.
20. When I was a kid I played classical harp.
21. I don't swim very well.
22. I had a sadistic choir director in high school who told me I was a terrible dancer.
    
23. I'm actually a pretty good dancer. Not great, but good.
24. I take belly dance classes and perform fairly regularly.
    
25. Both my pinkie fingers are crooked.
26. I have persistent asthma. It used to flare up when I exercised, now it only gets bad if I have a bad cold or bronchitis. Yay regular exercise and modern medicine!
27. I used to be an opera singer.
28. I still want to sing a lead in one more Mozart opera someday.
29. I almost flunked math in high school because I was in the chorus of The King and I in local theater and I wasn't getting any sleep.
30. My husband says I snore, but I don't believe him.
31. I'm not sure if I want to have children.
32. I did children's theater in elementary school and got all the short roles, including a munchkin and a hobbit.
33. I've been in six musicals, six operas, and three operettas.
34. I speak basic German, and rudimentary French and Italian.
35. My hair is actually dishwater blond.
36. I am allergic to cats.
37. I had a TABC license for a while (so I could bartend, which I only did once).
38. I'm the third (possibly fourth) generation of my family to elope.
39. I used to read tarot cards, sometimes for money.
40. I am so not psychic.
41. I used to think Phantom of the Opera was the best musical ever written. I was wrong.
42. I never thought I would end up settling in Texas.
43. I don't really miss California, though I do miss my friends and family there sometimes.
44. I have two black and white Terrier mixes named Loki and Persephone.
45. I love comparative religion and mythology.
46. I've watched every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel several times, and can identify which episode and which season many random quotes come from. Scary.
47. I want to get a PhD in Psychology and Mythology.
48. I want to get a law degree.
49. I have bad dreams pretty frequently.
50. I used to love Victorian architecture and hate mid-century modern and later design, now it's mostly the other way around.
51. I read fiction incredibly fast, but am much slower with non-fiction. Imagine my dismay when I found this out after starting grad school.
52. I am addicted to Flickr.
53. I love Homestar Runner and Making Fiends. And I have the tee-shirts to prove it.
54. I am largely over my life-long Hello Kitty fixation.
55. I can order a few kinds of dim sum in really bad Chinese.
56. The worst airport I have every been in was in Tel Aviv. I was three hours early and almost missed my flight.
57. The farthest away I have ever traveled was Israel. Hawaii seems pretty far too, now that I live in Texas.
58. I got married in Hawaii.
59. I lived in Santa Barbara for 17 years, San Francisco for 7 years, Baltimore for 2 years, and Austin for 11.
60. I lived in Austin from 1996-1999, and then moved back in 2001 right be fore 9/11.
61. I find psychology fascinating and have read many books on it. I considered getting a social work or counseling degree before I decided on my most recent one.
62. My birthday is two days before Christmas. This worked to my advantage when I was a kid, and totally sucks now.
    
63. I belonged to a synagogue in Baltimore and was employed as a soloist at a Lutheran church at the same time. So that year I observed Passover while singing Holy Week services. They were more alike than you would imagine, and more different than they should have been.
64. I grew up knowing how to swear in Yiddish but not knowing anything about Judaism (my grandmother was Jewish but was raised protestant). I learned how to make latkes from my grandmother, and everything else I thought I knew about my heritage was from Fiddler on the Roof.
    
65. I refuse to roller skate, ice skate, or ski.
66. I've been to Israel, Belize, Honduras, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, England, Belgium, Switzerland, Wales, Scotland, and Canada.
    
67. I can quote large portions of Monty Python sketches.
68. I am a nerd of epic proportions.
69. I can also be quite redundant.
70. I own all of Frank Baum's Oz books, and a bunch of his way lesser known children's books.
71. I love elephants and collect SMALL amounts of elephant things. I consider the elephant my totem animal.
    
72. I feel a strong calling to help people understand themselves and others better and nurture compassion.
73. I can hand-code old school HTML.
74. I love yoga, and I wish I did it more often.
75. I'm a Capricorn with my moon in Pisces and Gemini rising. That means that I'm logical and stubborn on the surface, but introverted and mystical and intuitive underneath, and sometimes gregarious and changeable. Seems a little broad, doesn't it?
76. I used to write a food column for my former company's newsletter. People would email me to ask where to take their SO for special occasions. It was fun.
77. New Orleans has my favorite food in the world. I almost moved there before I decided to come back to Austin.
    
78. I seem to have gotten somewhat used to the Texas heat. When I was a kid I couldn't stand it when it got over 75 degrees.
79. I still hate the cockroaches, though.
80. Starting a business is one of the scariest and most fun things I've ever done.
81. I read Perez Hilton.
82. I hate misuse of punctuation, including but not limited to multiple exclamation and/or questions marks, incorrect use of apostrophes, and incorrect use of quotation marks.
83. My chocolate chip oatmeal pecan cookies are possibly the best in the world.
84. I have three tattoos: a lotus on my lower back, a hand of fatima on my right shoulder blade, and a scarab with a band on my left upper arm.
85. I am addicted to makeup and skin care products. I shudder to think how much I spend at Sephora in a year.
86. I've had consistent insomnia for several years in a row.
87. I love coffee. Maybe there's a connection there.
88. I'm addicted to positive-message makeover shows like What Not to Wear, How to Look Good Naked, Clean House, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and Dress My Nest. Yes, I know they're cheeze. No, I don't care.
89. I hate ugly reality TV, the stuff that encourages people to act out of self-interest and against their values.
    
90. The movie Idiocracy scared the shit out of me. See above.
91. I'm a liberal capitalist.
92. I once meditated for two days straight. (weekend workshop, there was sleep involved) I mostly felt a lot of back pain and extreme grumpiness. It was still a good experience.
93. I love blue dishes, purple clothes, burgundy lipstick, and my husband's brown eyes.
94. It makes me very angry that gay people can't marry in most states.
95. It makes me happy that it is finally changing.
96. I want to write a bestselling book on relationship dynamics in the professional world.
97. I want to go on Oprah to talk about my book.
98. I liked being single. I like being married way better.
99. I've indulged in an illegal drug exactly once. I don't like alcohol all that much either.
100. I know karate. (okay, I took karate for a couple of years in my early teens, but I still know how to break an arm or leg, given controlled circumstances)
     

Silly Toon

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

Now I have a crush on Doogie Howser, and it's all Joss Whedon's Fault

Back in Pink

I traveled to Santa Barbara two weeks ago for my grandmother's memorial. And then I went again last weekend for the funeral of a close friend's mother. That makes eight flights in 1.5 weeks (counting the connecting ones). I am so tired of flying that David and I have decided to road trip for our annual vacation this year. Many photo opportunities...

I dislike American Airlines because they treat you like an annoying inconvenience. There's got to be something in the corporate culture that encourages the flight crew to behave with total indifference towards the passengers. But it turns out Delta and USAir are worse. Stinky, hot planes (and mostly grumpy employees). It might be cold on AA, but at least it's clean and usually competent. I'm just fed up with flying in general. AA charged me for checking a tiny suitcase both ways on my second trip. And here's the thing -- we're a captive audience. They can cut services, raise prices, whatever, as long as the market will bear it. And because we have no other choice for long distance travel, we'll bear a lot. The only thing that would really get people to stop flying would be major safety issues. So we put up with the bumped flights and the lack of food and the hidden charges and myriad more discomforts, because it only takes half a day to get to the other side of the country.

All that being said, there were some nice things about the two trips. I got to eat several meals prepared by Chef Shaun, my genius foodie brother, and assorted pastries cooked by my mother the baker. This also gave me the opportunity to work on my food photography:

This is mixed greens with a lychee ginger dressing, with cucumber wrapped summer roll containing tuna sashimi, tempura plantain and shitake mushrooms, and lettuce. Garnished with edible flower confetti.

Prime rib (expertly cooked by my dad), celery root white truffle mash garnished with a roasted baby potato stuffed with garlic clove, horseradish mustard green beans and butter-brown sugar carrots.

Miss Maxine works on a biscotto.

This is Shaun rolling a home made waffle cone which we ate with homemade vanilla bean ice cream that had bits of my mom's chipotle brownies mixed in.

Which is best enjoyed with one of Shaun's killer cappuccinos.

Getting Shaun out of bed early enough to make a cappuccino to enjoy with one of my mom's legendary sticky buns, not as easy.

Hungry yet?

The first weekend I was there David came with me and we went for a walk on my favorite beach and got some cool snaps:

Flowers growing out of the beach cliffs.

There are about a million more pictures on my flickr page. So now I'm in recovery from all that traveling, food, and photography. Which includes, in my case, a nasty cold, just when I'd rather be exercising about four hours a day to atone (re: not grow out of my jeans) for all the great food I ate.

Hope everyone is having a safe and fun long weekend! I'm going back to sleep.