Legitimate Internet Search: Raw Chicken Implanted In Your Butt

I'm gonna keep this one short and sweet. Well, no. More like short and weird and confusing. I have this thing on my blog called Feedjit. It tells me (and anybody who wants to look) how people arrive on my blog. So it shows a location, a website from which they arrived (if any), and possibly a search term. For example, perhaps somebody in Washington DC could search for my blog by going to Google and searching "this is how I will get famous" and it would show up as such. Actually, I wrote a whole entry about it a little while ago. Pretty cool, eh?

Most of the searches that land on my blog include things like "inappropriate facebook status" because of this entry and "surviving Wisconsin winters" because of this one, and occasionally "Tommy used to work on the docks" because of this ole guy. There are plenty of real winners up in there. For example:

Have a click on there to read it closely. Damn crazy people. Sexy hobo romance! In the last couple of days, I've seen some more ridiculous - and new! - searches that have led to my blog. Have a lookie:

Royal Oak, Michigan arrived from google.com on "this is how i will get famous: So Long, Ole Snaggletooth. Hello Regular Guy." by searching for "snaggletooth man saying i look better than you, i look better than you."

Oh yes, for real. And then again today:

Easley, South Carolina arrived from ask.com on "this is how i will get famous: So Long, Ole Snaggletooth. Hello Regular Guy." by searching for "can i have my snaggletooth removed and replaced with a fake tooth?."

Do people actually call it a snaggletooth? Man, I was kidding when I said that! Well, good job everybody. I guess. Good luck with your damn snaggleteeth.

Snaggletooth is all fine and good, but the one that took the cake this week was this:

Yes indeed, that actually says Beaumont, Texas arrived from google.com on "this is how i will get famous: You've Got to Know Your Chicken" by searching for "raw chicken implanted in your butt."

WHY?! What is going on?! What IS this, even? Do people implant raw chicken in their butts? Is this a thing? As I sat and wondered, guess what else popped up on the ole feedjit this morning:


Yep, it's true. This one says Boston, Massachusetts arrived from google.com on "this is how i will get famous: Inappropriate Facebook Statuses" by searching for facebook's famous inappropriate chicken in your butt

COME ON. America, what the hell is happening to you? I feel just about done with you and your craziness. I'll stick with all the foreigners who arrive on my blog by searching "famous busted," thank you very much. Seriously, there are like 4-5 of those ones a week. Jeez...

Take That, Delicious Food!

Have you all heard of this blog called Delicious Food? It started on MySpace a few years ago with a slightly pompous and very condescending individual taking pictures of food and interjecting a personal opinion upon each picture and each food item. Now it is an outside blog via blogspot, and the attitude and jackassery continue. Although Delicious Food (I refer to the author of this blog as Delicious Food because I have absolutely no idea who the person behind it is!) can be a pretty giant jerk sometimes, I've always admired and appreciated those pictures and hilarious, sharp blog entries.

After each new entry, I always feel inspired to find some delicious food myself. To be honest, I usually buy it or find somebody else to make it. I know some pretty damn good cooks out there, I tell you. Occasionally, though, I'll give it a try, but the results have been...mixed. Like the one time I made fake everything and it was sort of gross. I've been somewhat doubtful about my cooking abilities in the past, but man, I'm trying now. I've been doing better, especially in the last year, and I'ma keep trying.

I can't go much further, however, without throwing some credit to my most recent houseguest. Last week, I had the pleasure of some beautiful and wonderful company and some of the most delicious food I've had in my entire life. And you know what? I've had some damn good food in my life. But dudes, this food...it was insane. My kitchen was transformed into something completely new; I don't think it will ever be the same. Amazing things happened in there. And so I got inspired. Which is funny, because, of all the ways this man has inspired me, the last thing I ever thought I'd take action on would be cooking. Nevertheless, here were are. Thank you, Christopher. Much respect.





Alright, alright, here we go. When I was in Atlanta for my sister's birthday last month, we dined at a lovely restaurant called Solstice where we ate butternut squash ravioli in a sage brown butter sauce. Omg. Seriously, omg. It was so good, and I've had a taste for it ever since. And thanks to both the inspiration from last week, along with the wonders of the internet, I decided to try. Look what happened:

The ingredients for the sauce: chicken broth, butter, and sage leaves, fresh from Jess's garden!

Pumpkin tortellini. I did not make this, but it is from RP's Pasta here in Madison. Fresh and local, and comes in a package! Fantastic!

That's just some butter melting in a pan. It makes me feel sort of funny that there's so much butter in there, but...whatever. Not funny enough to not eat it.

The butter completely melted a couple of minutes later.

Once it started to turn brown, I added the chicken broth and sage leaves. If only I could take a picture of a smell...

You can see the brown color in this one. Hence, "Brown Butter." Get it?!

This is a very complicated process called "boiling the pasta." Extremely complicated.

But I made it work! Whew!

I also decided to roast some brussel sprouts - olive oil, salt and pepper.

Oh damn, there it is, all finished! So delicious, and totally easy.

Although it wasn't the same as what my sister and I ate, it was really delicious and extremely satisfying to have made myself! It's funny to learn brand new things when you're thirty, but whatever. This all rules. Hell yeah, thirty!

Simply Fabulous!

No, it's not a Sex and the City reference, thank god. But it is good news, dudes. It's slowly but surely happening. I'm getting famous...

Well...okay, I'm totally not getting famous. But! Even though I didn't write anything for a zillion years, the one and only John Statz, Madison music scene staple and folk singer to the max, has presented me and my blog with the amazing Simply Fabulous Award! Although I probably won't bother to research this myself since I know most of my assumptions are just unconditionally correct, I'm pretty sure there's a very prestigious committee that meets somewhere in Europe once a year to vote on possible recipients of this award, and John is just the lucky person who gave me the message. Yow! Many thanks to John who has a fantastic blog detailing his stories while on tour. This man goes everywhere! He's an amazing musician and a lovely person, and I'm honored that he thought of me. Also, he wears a wrestling mask in his bloggo picture. Totally Sexy. Thank you, John!



So, one of the conditions of this award is that I re-award five blogs of my own choosing. I guess I'm officially on the committee now or something, which is great, because I'm sure I'll have to attend a lot of those meetings in Europe. The second condition is that I write about five of my obsessions. That's a dangerous condition for somebody who leans slightly towards the OCD behaviors, so I'll instead lean away from those real obsessions and just talk about awesome things. Narrowing it down to five is ridiculously hard, so I'll just do the first five I think of. Here you go:

1. Infomercials. I first started watching infomercials when I was having trouble sleeping during grad school. I don't have cable and am limited to about ten channels at the most. Many of them show infomercials. And I do not mind. My favorites include The Magic Bullet (amazing blender/food processer/purée-er), The Jack Lalanne Juicer (self-explanatory), The GTXpress (this makes all your food in the shape of a pocket), Hip Hop Abs (Shawn T's Three T's! Tilt, Tuck, and Tighten!), and Chef Tony's Miracle Blades (knives). I own the Magic Bullet, the juicer, and a Sunggie. But I should say that they've all been gifts. So instead of being a sucker, I can just consider myself "a fan." Those infomercials are brilliant and hilarious and I love them.

2. Pictures of Food. Um...yeah. Have you all heard of Delicious Food? And This is Why You're Fat? And Insanewiches? And Everybody Likes Sandwiches? And PICTURES OF FOOD? Stupendous.

3. Tights and earrings, every color of the rainbow. I have tried getting rid of things, spring cleaning, whatever, and every time, I get rid of no more than one pair of earrings and maybe two pair of tights. Only because they have holes or have lost their elastic since I started wearing them in high school. So I have a lot. As you can see:




4. People. I love people. I believe in the inherent good of people. I love traveling to see people. I've recently realized that all I want to do is save up all my money and travel around the country and the world to see all the people I love and meet all the people I will love. I love talking to people. I love learning from people, way more than I like learning from classes or books. I am fascinated with how people think and feel, and the way their brains work, and I think endlessly about people and how they see the world and live their lives and what that must feel like. And I revel in the realization that I'll never know, and I love that. I love the mystery of everybody.

5. Fall. Especially in Wisconnie. I think John said it quite well in his last entry, and I'll try and live up to that...I have fallen in love with this beautiful state, especially in the last few weeks. The cool/cold weather makes the air so fresh; I actually enjoy breathing more than usual. All of a sudden I want to cook and bake and listen to folk music all day, and I love every minute of it. In my car, I take the long way home and drive slowly, away from the main roads. I switch from iced lattes to hot coffee drinks. I wear hats and scarves and find myself saying "I like daytime activities" and happily staying home on Friday and Saturday nights. I want to take walks and not speak, not listen to music, just walk and see and hear the world. Fall in Wisconnie - you should totally join me here sometime.

And now, to re-award! I love blogging and I love reading other blogs, and I'll admit, I'm probably extremely biased here. But I believe these are some of the finest blogs out there in the bloggy blogosphere. Very difficult to narrow it down to five, but here are some I love that post pretty regularly. Check it!

1. Ashes and Glass. Well, duh, of course the first one is my sister's blog! Sara's writing, pictures, artwork, and activism fill her blog and fill my heart (yes, I wrote that and I meant it. Bite me). She's a magical, wonderful, and beautiful sister and person, and her blog is just a tiny piece of somebody I'm elated and overjoyed to have in my life and call family.

2. Fifty Acorns Tied in a Sack. My girl Tara; my first friend in Madison and one of my best friends ever in life. With every post, she inspires me to create, imagine, live beautifully, and love endlessly. Damn, I love this woman.

3. Grin and Beer It. You read it right! Oh, no big deal, just my BFF Sarah's blog about beer. I'm always impressed with Sarah's ever-expanding knowledge of beer and her desire to learn more. Plus, she posts great pictures of the beer and the food she eats with it, and uses words like "heady" and "mouthfeel." Sexy.

4. Easel Ain't Easy. Oh Breena. Where do I ever start with Breena? I think we're secretly the same person. Ridiculously talented, both artistically and musically, and undoubtedly one of the kindest and most loving people I know, Breena simply rules. She recently moved out to Portland to work on her graphic novel (can you say BADASS?) and has a fantastic site with her blog, her comic, her music, and many other wonderful things. I admire Breena so much and wish every day we could hang out more. Her comics are posted near daily, so if you subscribe, you get a lovely little surprise drawing in your inbox all the time! Fantastic.

5. In The Pudding Club. Okay. This is my friend Lauren from high school. Although we weren't all that tight in high school, I've since become sort of obsessed with her (as well as her sister Claire who, incidentally, dated Little Brudder a long, long time ago! Although I guess I've been obsessed with her since like ten years ago) and cannot stop reading this blog of hers. Lauren has a baby, and as you probably know, I'm no expert on the babies. But I can say that this is the most honest and beautifully written, not to mention hilarious, baby-related blog I've ever seen. Read this is you want to be all full of love and maybe have a kid some day.

So that's that! To you five winners, let's hear your top fives! And to the rest of you lovelies, thanks for reading and writing, and a big ole thanks to John for the award! I expect I'll be doing a lot of traveling to these committee meetings and making speeches to teenagers and stuff like that, now that I've obtained this award, so if I'm not around for awhile, you'll understand why. xo!

Baby Ghosts

Does anybody remember when I was hearing Baby Ghosts in the attic? I can't find the actual blog because maybe I never wrote it on here, but here's the text from the two myspace blogs I wrote:

1. i think it was sometime right before labor day when my mom came and stayed with me for a night and she kept saying she was hearing things running around in my attic. i didn't really hear it at first, but then after awhile, i started to hear things as well...like maybe something one might describe as (and i hate that i'm writing this word, but...) "scampering" about. or like, running playfully. scampering, really. i assumed they were raccoons or possums or something. i heard them a few more times and thought that i should probably tell my landlord. i think i may have at some point. whatever, nothing ever happened. they're totally still up there. i heard them today, in fact. scampering about.

but here's the thing. one afternoon, about a month ago, i heard the same noises, only it was more like running. and then...i heard a squeaky toy. like a dog toy that squeaks. for real now, even if there was a squeaky toy up there, what raccoon knows how to make it actually squeak? a genius raccoon, sure. but the one in my attic is no genius. its ordinary. and probably the toy wouldn't even be able to fit in its mouth.

so here's my thought: either it was some sort of super-powered genius raccoon with a giant mouth (obviously VERY far-fetched), or it was baby ghosts. ghost children. they've been up there for however long, and they get bored, and their only toy to play with is some random squeaky dog toy somebody left up there by accident. i mean, that's the obvious explanation, right? not far-fetched at all.

at this point, i'm just trying not to think about them too often.

And the follow-up, a couple of months later:

2. i’m telling you, they’re right next to me

the baby ghosts. they are now in the wall of my bedroom, in the wall less than a foot away from where i'm sitting in my bed. they are rolling toys and acorns around and around, up and down, side to side. i swear to god, i can hear them.

i know i sound like a crazy lady, but i've talked about this before, and to be 100% honest, i know they're most likely squirrels, not baby ghosts, but nevertheless, i am absolutely terrified right now.

i don't know why. but i'm fucking terrified of these squirrels.

About three minutes ago, I heard a squeak. Squirrels don't squeak, man! So either it's the baby ghosts and they've found their squeaky toy, or it's some kind of goose right outside my window. Either way, what the hell?

I mean, it was an audible squeak. Loud, even.

When I called in sick to work this morning, I didn't even feel all that bad. But now that I'm writing this and thinking back on my day, I think it's quite possible that I had some near hallucinations or something. And now baby ghosts. Perfect.

Things That Are Making Me Happy Today

*Fruit on the Bottom Yogurt
*Toast with butter
*Vampire Weekend
*The Hold Steady (I can't believe these nerds made the list)
*My bed:

*The breeze and the lanai:

*Having a vacation day with nothing that important or pressing to do
*White clothing for some reason
*Various blogs:
My sister
Tara
Awesome MacKenzie from college
*My awesome beach/pool bag:

*The fact that my earrings are so organized right now:

I just thought you all should know!

Finally

One Second Time Machine

Somebody recently told me "your brain rocks" after I described a particular dream to them. I liked hearing that, and I thought I'd let the internizzle in on it. So come on in.

There will be some brilliance in there, I promise you. There already is.