There are lots of things in the world I like: writing, gardening, sketch comedy, crafts, filmmaking, cooking, cuteness, farmers' markets, libraries, voracious reading habits, music, Paris, my cat, walking, crocheting, M.F.K. Fisher.

This is about some of them.

Last night I was suddenly inspired to make chocolate chip cookies using the recipe in Jeffrey Steingarten's book. They were good, but so full of butter that a couple melted on the cooling rack, dripping down into cookie stalactites. We ate them anyway.

for my computer

born in '98,
no firewire, crashes weirdly,
but i can't hate it.

So I am supposed to fill out my "Employee Performance Appraisal" form by Monday and give it to my supervisor, but I am having a real problem because every time I look at the form I just feel like laughing.

Describe the professional goals you have set for yourself for the next 2-3 years. Um, I want to save up enough money to quit this job in a year or hopefully less, move to Thailand to teach English for a year and come back to go to grad school.

Describe the specific actions you expect to take to prepare yourself to meet this goals. A lot of research on the internet when my supervisor isn't looking. Not letting the endless mound of mindless work steal my soul. Long lunches.

What can your manager do to support the attainment of your goals? Leave her desk a lot so I can keep looking at travel websites without feeling guilty.

Does anyone take this seriously? It's not like I work at a buttoned-up, conservative company -- everyone is under 35, most are in their mid-20s, we can wear whatever we want -- but I always feel like I am faking it at big meetings. They're all nodding their heads so seriously and I just want to crack up.

What skills have you gained over the past year that have improved your job performance? Stifling. I'm an expert now.

I am so into this: the Gender Genie! You paste a piece of writing, submit it and, analyzing the words used, it algorithmically determines if the author is male or female.

It knew I was a girl 2 out of 3 times.

Sad as Elliot Smith's death is (and it is very sad), it is still no excuse to whip out the bad poetry I've been seeing floating around the internet. It reminds me uncomfortably of the notebooks of poems my 14-year-old self dedicated to Kurt Cobain. It makes me want to dig out said notebooks and perhaps post one. Because I find it both painful and hilarious, like everything from that age.

Ahem.

THIS IS FOR KURT COBAIN
4/8/94

My Unknown Angel
Goodbye is worth nothing
When you cannot speak to the one you love.
When he is gone
And you never got to say
"No matter what, I am here,
To always believe in you."
When he never got to see
The corner of your heart he lived in.
When the world tells you
He deserved nothing but misery.
How can you get over it
If you have no hope for humans?
What do you do
If the only one that understood you
Is dead
And they blame him for dying?
Too much of him is left behind
And you will mourn alone
Until the day you finally meet
When he will fill your soul
With the music in his eyes.

Oh, so painful.

Two important items to note about this weekend:

Item 1: I got a new computer that I love love love. I have two crafts already in the works to celebrate the arrival of my lovely laptop. First, I am going to convert an old turquoise Yamaha music bag into a laptop case by lining it with thin foam and some kind of fabric. Then I am going to embroider a patch proclaiming "I Heart my iBook" and sew it to the front. Yes.

Item 2: Kevin and I went to Uncabaret and saw Judd Apatow (creator of Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared), Bob Odenkirk, Andy Dick and some other guy whose name I can't remember, but who was funny. It was so good, especially dear old grumpy Odenkirk. I think I have been watching so many episodes of Mr. Show on DVD that I now understand the landscape of his mind. I like it there.

...for Halloween!

And my friend Rob will be Uma. Ha!

Pumpkins + roasted pumpkin seeds + spiced wine + The Devil's Backbone + my honey = l.o.v.e.

This is Kevin's cool pumpkin with the Jack Skellington face.

Girls Pummel Man Who Exposed Himself

Fantastic.