Love Is Blind. And Hungry.

I know this is an event almost everyone comes across at one point or another in their life, right? How to mail a cake across the country 70 degree weather? Well, first, you make a cake. You make it marble (his favorite) and slave over fondant for... what? Three hours? Dude, fondant is hard. It seems hopeless at the beginning- you're basically trying to knead powdered sugar and water. It's phenomenal that it can turn into something so smooth and cool looking!

The design is a circuit board (he also got a trinket box made out of circuit boards and a subscription to Maximum PC- I like themes). The best part, in my opinion, is that he got the thing below and still thought it rocked. Which shows that he's either a sweetheart, visually impaired, or just a hungry hungry hip-er, boy.

I do think it's quite cool that the green fondant melted into the blue fondant. That deeper green you see around the edges was the buttercream layer between the fondant and the actual cake, it was colored from a different cake I'd frosted. It was wrapped in a plastic bag, and then bubble wrap, and then the box was stuffed with newspaper so things wouldn't jostle (like my mother's glass plate).

Reads: The Amulet of Samarkand

Rating: 4.89 out of 5

This is another book I think very highly of, and I never hesitate to recommend it to anyone (unless they're a soulless type without a sense of humor or love of fantasy). The cover on the left is the kind of cover style featured on the trilogy that I own. I also own a hardcover with the cover version the right (which I greatly prefer, so pretty and subtle!) but I believe they stopped making nice covers with the other two in the series... unless I've just been internet-disabled and can't find them. Not that the one on the left isn't nice. It's very.... nice. It's fine! Oh god, new topic.

These books are funny, clever, with a good plot and likable but different characters and a setting that is unlike anything else I've run across. There are tons of little historical references that Stroud ties in with the magical context (which I love) and a great deal of footnotes because one of the main narrators has the ability to think on more than one level of consciousness at one time.

Sex Education Has Never Looked Quite Like This

You know how when ladies are really quite pregnant and you can see the little hands and feet of their babies prodding out through the mom's flesh? Well, it's kind of like they're saying "yo", isn't it? ...I just never imagined that I'd ever see one come out grinning with his arms upheld already about to beg "up? up?"

It's from a German childrens' book, some of which my favorite translations are "They kiss each other. Father's penis is growing large." and "Mother and Father lie down on the bed. They put the penis in the vagina. They play with each other. Father and Mother rock to and fro."
(From boingboing.)

Childing Rearing

[Benjamin was watching an episode of Supernanny involving some very whiny children.]

Benjamin: Wooooow. Her children are pathetic. lol
Abigail: Our children are going to be little vikings, okay?
Benjamin: LOL I don't know...Vikings are pretty violent.
Abigail: well... then.... uh...
Benjamin: How about little Romans?
Abigail: LOL <3
Benjamin: haha
Abigail: ...didn't the romans drink their own pee?
Benjamin: I have no idea, but they were smart and strong.
Abigail: I am CRACKING UP >.<
Benjamin: LOL Whyyyy?
Abigail: now I'm worried our kids will drink their own pee

Thomas Nast (and Santa)

The illustration for my Thomas Nast essay. I was amused.

Electrical Sockets... A History

Sexy Balls

Some of the sexiest, cutest, awesomeness illustration out there on the world wide web from Jen Wang. (more here!)

One In A Million

These are the two main illustrations that went into the making of my pop up card. The inside read "one in a million".

No Fathers Left Behind

A page from my wordless story, where a daddy fish accidentally dumps his baby fish down a manhole (fishhole?) in the street and dives in to save him, but is swept up by the other fishes down there and goes back to his natural life, leaving his baby and his designer pram to be washed back up to civilization and left alone. Woe.

My Smart Twin

Today is Sarah Slane's birthday! She's rocked since we were five (and I reckon she rocked before that, but since I didn't know her before then I can't quite accurately vouch for it). Strange thinking that the little girl on the left is going to be an english teacher and the little girl on the right is going to be an illustrator. <3

Reads: The Time Traveler's Wife

Before I give this book its stellar grade I'd like to give a shout out of praise to my boyfriend Benjamin for dealing with me every time I was reading and began sobbing in public on the bus, and in my studio at eight in the morning, and also for taking me (somewhat) seriously when I instructed him to never ever get his feet amputated. He rocks.

Rating: 4.88 out of 5
Obviously, I loved this book. Along with Carol Goodman's The Lake of Dead Languages and Clive Barker's Abarat, it will gladly be listed off whenever people ask what some of my favorite books were. I think a lot of my love for it had to do with where I am right now in my life as a 21 year-old girl in the midst of a long distance relationship. I could relate perfectly to the main character Clare while she waited for Henry to appear again, counting down the days until the next day on the list he'd given her. (Speaking of which, less than a month until I see Benj again!) There was plenty of sprinklings of sex, ups and downs, and a cover photograph that is ingenius. Good book. I haven't seen the movie yet, so shut yo trap.

Rembrant Has Never Looked So Cool

Cool, right? Rembrant. Lines. Neat.

Except then you find out it was made out of a single piece of tulle. One. Singular. Uno. Pressed and tucked and transformed into mind boggling glorious-ness.Benjamin Shine rocks my world.
See more here.

Cake of Awesomeness

Last night I accidentally deleted all the pictures off my camera. I was quite bummed, as all the photos of the gorgeous cake my mother slaved over had been on there, as well as the pictures from when Benjamin was up in August. Luckily, my father had taken some pics and though they aren't as spiffy as mine were and I look mildly ridiculous in each one, they are proof that the cake existed! It reminded me of Van Gogh. The frosting was lemon. I ate the last piece today, and it was glorious.

A Visit From Minnesotans

My old roommate Carrie and our friend Huseyin drove six hours from Minneapolis to visit little old me on my 21st. We stopped at the side of the road to take pictures, and then came home and slept on the front lawn. Our drunken activities? A puzzle.

(pictures taken by Huseyin)

House on the Rock

The womens' bathroom was so neat we had to investigate the guys'.

*via Marisa.