I’ve been wanting to arrange the music “corner” something like this for years.  Finally decided to get the shelves to do it, only to have the project spiral into ~3 weekends for various reasons.  Really nice to also have that artwork up on the wall as well.  This wall has been 1 giant white/cream blank spot since we moved in here 10 years ago.

On the shelves on the left:  phonograph, (small) collection of vinyl albums.  On the top shelf on the wall: harp, bongo, collection of recorders/tin whistles/various small wind instruments; 1 maraca.  On the lower wall shelf: antique xylophone (black case), my student flute (brown case).  Hanging in the middle is my backpacking guitar, which i kept forgetting i had because it was packed in its bag and tucked behind all this other stuff when i stored it all on the piano.  The 4 prints on the right are by Juli Adams.  The print in the middle is a Japanese print that Andy’s had for awhile.

(Apologies for the picture being a little dark and murky.  My phone seems to be dying.  Yay.)

A pic/slide from yesterday that got all belated because right after taking this it was birthday happy hour, and birthday “buy a bunch of stuff at Walgreen’s”, and birthday takeout from Thai Tom, and then birthday “do a bunch of fuckin’ work on this big class project” (while sipping (birthday) sake).

I really love those shoes.

June 2nd is usually a day of tense, puppy-dog-quivering excitement.  “What will happen on the 3rd??  Will it be quietly nice?  Will it be really pretty great??  OMG, i can’t wait to find out!!”  And then june 4th is one long day of crushing disappointment, coupled with the knowledge that there are 364 lonnnnnnng days to contemplate why the 3rd sucked again and how it will no doubt suck again next year.  Ho hum.

This year, june 3rd is actually going to be one of those birthdays i tend to like most:  I’ll be too freakin’ busy with and distracted by schoolwork to really notice my birthday.  The same thing happened when i turned 21 and it was actually kinda awesome.  I was taking a summer class that year and my birthday wound up falling on the day before the course final.  Since i knew i’d be consumed for the entire rest of the day with preparing for the final, i treated myself to some of my favorite things on campus in the hour or 2 right after class ended.  I bought my favorite lunch at my favorite campus eatery.  I sat in the little wooded area next to my usual dorm (not open for the summer, alas).  I checked my email one last time in the science center before they shut access for the summer.

And then, as a bonus treat, as i was leaving the computer lab i bumped into my roommate¹ and her cousin.  They’d driven 2 hours across the state just to surprise me for my birthday.  It was lovely!  We hung out and probably got ice cream or something before they drove back home and i started studying.  When i got back to my room to study, my summer school roommate surprised me with a birthday card in which she’d inscribed my summer class prof’s favorite critique of our photography: “This is about as creative as spit!!”

This year?  I’m finishing up my pidgins/creoles class and have a massive project due.  I’ve been drowning in work for that for days and tomorrow is looking to be no different.  In fact, i won’t get a break from this project until noon on tuesday, june 11th, when the thing is due (no exceptions! — thank god, a hard, inflexible deadline!!).

Yet another birthday that’s about as creative as spit.  But, frankly, i’m coming to actually crave that in a birthday.  No expectations, no disappointments.

Happy 41, i guess.

1. Not my summer school roommate, but my beloved rest-of-the-year roommate [↩]

This morning i realized we need the word “fansplaining”.  You know what it means.  You know you’ve encountered it (over and over again).

Hell, you may actually have engaged in it from time to time.  [side eye]

Everytime someone opens the front door i smell the sea.

The family story is that my Aunt Cathy found this recipe in a magazine 30-odd years ago, but whenever people would ask her for it she’d gravely intone, “I’m sorry, it’s a family recipe”.  Unfortunately, i can never remember if this calls for evaporated or condensed milk (and buying the wrong one would produce results drastically different from expected), so i’m posting the recipe here for the whole internet to see — but mostly for Andy and me to have access to it when we’re standing in the grocery store trying to remember which type of milk we need.

(I originally included this in Paragraph Girl #0, so you may remember it from there¹.)

hot fudge sauce that isn’t really “fudgey”

1 12-oz. can evaporated milk
2 cups sugar
3 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate

* Note:  This recipe can be halved.  I’ve been lucky to find 5-ounce cans of evaporated milk in my local grocery store, which means i don’t have to save or waste 1/2 a can of evaporated milk if i want to make a smaller batch.

1. Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan.
2. Warm over medium heat until chocolate has melted and sugar has dissolved, stirring regularly.
3. Continue warming (and stirring) sauce for 5-10 minutes to thicken.

1. LORD, how did that zine come out 9 years ago??? [↩]