I was a girl scout

Yes. I was a Girl Scout. Hello. However, my memories on the specifics about my experiences are generally fuzzy. Here are some images I remember:

• Learning the American Sign Language alphabet, then sitting cross-legged with the rest of my troop, and signing my first name to a woman who was deaf. She had come to our meeting as a guest, and I remember my heart pounding and my fingers going all wiggly because I was so nervous. Signing my name in front of everyone. I think I did OK, though.
  
• Standing in the hallway of the community center where we would meet, with hot tears welling up in my eyes because I couldn't do the hand motions to "Edelweiss" perfectly after trying for only 20 minutes. I remember the hallway was really dim, because no one else used the building on Saturdays, so not all the lights were on.
  
• Going to Camp Welaka for "Girl Scout camp," but all I remember was waking up in the middle of night, scratching myself raw because I was covered in head-to-toe mosquito bites (we were all eaten alive). I may have woken up with a swollen eye. I think I also had the coolest flashlight known to man: it had three different lights on it, one of which may have strobed.
  
• Looking through my badge book, searching for badges that didn't involve talking to strangers/anyone at all. 

I was a "brownie" and then graduated to "junior." I did help sell cookies. But as I recall, I hated standing outside of Crafts & Stuff and seeing the look in people's eyes. 

"Oh, god please don't ta--" 

"Hi, would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?" the other girls would whine as sweetly as possible.

Then it was the adults' turn: stammering, excuses, or the pursed-lip-with-a-head-shake. 

I was even more shy and stranger-phobic than I am now, so you can imagine the back of my E.T.-length neck burning, my cheeks on fire, and all I wanted to do was go home and watch T.V. under the covers. Or build prototypes for fake inventions. Or read my "Goosebumps" books.

Oh, boy. That went somewhere I didn't expect it to.

I don't give a shit about celery

I can cook now! This is so exciting!

Eighteen months ago, I worked mostly with AllRecipes.com, but as the months have progressed and I've gone pretty full-on vegetarian and lazily vegan, I've been lurking all manner of personal and personal-gone-professional food blogs. Then when I got a slow cooker for Christmas, I had a whole new pre-occupation.

Beans, beans, onions and tomatoes, cloves and cloves of garlic and a whole bottle of ginger powder later, I've become way more confident "in the kitchen." I made vegan corn chowder last night, people! This is serious! And with my willing and hungry partner in the kitchen (Thank you, Chris), I am virtually unstoppable.

But what's next? Well, everything. I'm looking into alternative forms of flour and looking at baking things. Things that don't contain mostly heavy cream, butter, and sugar. And making our own breads sounds like fun/terror.

When I'm looking for recipes, I try to stick to similar realms of ingredients, but so many recipes call for celery and I'm just like, no. I remember as a child enjoying a lovely egg salad sandwich, minding my own sandwich-business, and then CRUNCH. My mind would suddenly race as I desperately tried to figure out "What is this is this onion? What is this is this RED ONION? What is this is this EGGSHELL? No, no, no it's celery. Ugh." And then when I'd see it in soups, it may as well have been a saturated cotton ball or a green carrot. Utterly useless and tasteless.

One day I'm sure I'll get over it and just have celery around, but. No. Not right now.

Tentacled performance beast

A few months ago, I teamed up with this creature:
And this precious gem:

As well as some other fanciful monsters to "make work" essentially. As I was not able to snap pics of the remaining 3 other group members, here is an artist's rendering of the rest of our crew:
In a nutshell, I was able to perform in front of people in a way in which I couldn't merely hide behind a character and wardrobe. And as an ensemble, which is also my most favoritest. (i.e., ensemble movies of the '80s and '90s). We wanted to parody, comment on, affectionately mock, and pay tribute to some of the music scenes that we frequent most often, and in a way that played with gender and the "other." Fellow teammates, feel free to elaborate more better in the comments section. This was a collaborative effort, so I WANT TO HEAR YOUR LUSCIOUS VOICES.

We did 4 shows in 6 days, in Brooklyn, then in Northampton, Mass., as well as different houses in the Boston area. It was incredible, and it made me so happy to be working as a team, flowing as a group, and listening to each other. Each performance was structured differently, but had general "tracks" that would be shuffled, but the energy was always strong and throbbing. It was so delicious to wake up in the morning, sore from the performance the night before. Hopefully, a video will be posted soon; you'll see it.

While performing at these houses, I was so fascinated by everyone's living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens. I loved them all. I wanted to take as many pictures, try to build a piece of furniture they had, or decorate my apartment with something in particular. Here's one of them:
The group plans to do more shows. MANY MANY more shows. Providence, Baltimore, Toronto -- WE WANT THEM ALL.