songs

so... i'm absolutely nothing of a health crusader any longer; like my life always seems to flow, i seem to always change. slowly sometimes, and some things that should have changed a long time ago never did and things that shouldn't have changed did and then changed back. of course, some things changed and stayed changed, but, i am once again a singer-songwriter. for so many years on prescription drugs i lost my songs, and i'm so happy they're back. it only took a few years off the drugs, a year and a half of non-stop hip hop/r&b/rap/pop, and having my heart broken a few score times.

it's good to be back. i even rap now :)

i wrote this song on monday, and it's stuck in my head.

(My Other Half)

without you i can do anything that i want
and without you i can go out with anyone
without you i can hang all i want in the tub
and without you i don't have to worry if it's love
but it's kind of lonely and my bed's so chilly
and i could use someone to count on

but it's hard to believe you exist
it's hard to believe that you're not just a figment of my
hyperactive technicolor imagination
convinced myself within a heartbeat you were coming
now i'm finding it hard to admit
i don't believe you exist

without you i get up, go to work most days
and without you i go out to the bar and play
without you i waste hours upon hours on mistakes
and without you everything's wasted anyway
though my heart's not free it won't come easily
and i so want to believe in you

but it's hard to believe you exist
it's hard to believe that you're not just a figment of my
hyperactive technicolor imagination
convinced myself within a heartbeat you were coming
now i'm finding it hard to admit

sick of all the same old stupid shit from neverending stupid guys
sick of getting shafted every time and sick of neverending lies
i'm so punch drunk i can't see straight
boy you should be here, you're late
and i am almost out of faith
and waiting

solo

but it's hard to believe you exist
it's hard to believe that you're not just a symptom of my
pain and prophesy dissecting to a splinter
i always knew that i was meant to face the winter
you could change all that and that's my wish
but it's hard to believe you exist
so hard to believe you exist

oh, i have a blog

yeah. hmmm.

i made some art! and a corsage, which i suppose you could say is also art.
check it out yo, and go to Fakin' Fest '09

not much going on, same old same old.

"Chemical agriculture is like a drug trip..."

"... it takes more and more every year to achieve the same effect"

I am really looking forward to this movie:



The trailer gives me goosebumps.

can someone please have an occasion...

...for which i can make this b*tchin' cake?

...and can they please be named joey as well? I would really love for that to happen.

INJERA !!

Here's proof you don't need sourdough starter, yeast, wheat flour, or any of that junk to make a sourdough starter. I forgot to take a picture of my first attempt at cooking injera last weekend 'cause I was too busy eating it, but here it is in the last 24 hours before cooking. Beautiful, no? I'm so full of pride I am surely going to hell.

Teff is a gluten-free grain and mega-high in iron, calcium, phosphorous, protein... the list goes on and on. Supposedly "one serving" of injera* has 1/3 of your daily iron requirement, and that was injera made with half white wheat flour. White flour and my tummy are not friends (!!), so this is all teff, and i'm guessing 2/3 of your daily iron per serving. No wonder I crave it! I have read that in Ethiopia, where injera is a staple food, rich people use all teff and the poor add other flours since teff is expensive. I paid $39 for a 25 lb bag at a local ethiopian market, which is spendy, but at the same place got a quart of bebere for $10, so it evens out I guess. As a food stuff, I admire the simplicity of injera: tablecloth, utencil, and starch all in one. I'm also a huge fan of anything sour. Case in point: I just harvested rhubarb and will take some tomorrow to the Bright Neighbor meet-up to give to fellow rhubarb lovers. But I digress.

It's amazing how easy making the starter was, but beware if you try this at home: sourdough starter stinks like a mofo for about a week while it's incubating. My house was rank... my roommate said he didn't notice but I sure as heck did. Once you've got it you can save a bit every time you make a batch and use the same starter for years, sometimes centuries. Maybe if you eat enough injera you will live long enough to enjoy it that long!

I did this dance all week to prepare for the injera making. I think if I had remembered to do it while making the injera, the injera would have turned out perfectly :)


*I have no idea how much that is, and can't find the stinkin' source to reference it now, sorry. Here is more nutritional info. 17x the calcium of whole wheator barley? Rad!

I'm a Bright Neighbor

Here in Portland we have this awesome new social networking site/group thing called Bright Neighbor. Created by Randy White of the Lawns to Gardens blog I link to in the sidebar, the site is a cross between Craig's list and Facebook, with an emphasis on trading goods and services, promoting urban micro gardening, and helping us all live in this day and age by pooling our resources. Pretty great. Last night I attended a meetup, the kick-off party for a 95 neighborhood community outreach tour, had a few beers, swapped seeds (my cilantro for their fava beans), and gave a few away. There were also pizza and speakers and it was awesome.

I met this guy and really want to go to his kick-ass looking "four hour permaculture crash course".

Makin' Sourdough Starter

I've recently become crazy enamored of Ethiopian food and started making it at home. The stuff is vegan comfort food at it's best - spicy lentils or split peas, gingery greens, potatos, cabbage, carrots, all on a sour spongy flat pancake type thing that acts as plate, utensil, and gluten free carb source all in one. So, I got my butt down to the local Ethiopian Market (1/2 hour scooter ride from my house) to get Teff flour to make injera, and found the bags were too big to be scooter friendly. I found someone with a car, went back, and now have a pyrex dish full of vaguely grapenuts-smelling teff flour and water mixture.

I'm vaguely going off of these instructions:
Homegrown Evolution

I will let you guys know if anything promising comes of it! I am using 100% teff flour, no wheat flour added, as some of my research would indicate that a 100% teff starter will work better for making 100% teff injera (as opposed to injera or starter with some white flour in the mix). It should be about two weeks until I can use the starter to make injera. Woot!