My Blog

4 Buffy Craft Project

mara_schnookums — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:10:01 GMT

Monkey sleep mask!!! finished very late at night.

The video that is making my day

mara_schnookums — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:53:24 GMT

This is awesome: cute hipster girl, fat activism, cartoons, and dinosaurs! Rawr! Not just any dinosaur - a rad fat activist dinosaur in a horizontal stripped shirt!! I'm in love! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aWMbbjKWjI&eurl=http://www.feministing.com/

Random Book Stumble

mara_schnookums — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:12:42 GMT

Just found this cool online blog/book/radio project called Beyond Masculinity: Essays by Queer Men on Gender and Politics. It's free and I haven't read it all yet, but there seem to be some good essays on identity, race, sexuality, etc. The coolest part (aside from the free part) is the essays are podcasted being read by their authors. Yay! http://www.beyondmasculinity.com/articles/index.php In other book news: I just got the third gay pirate book! Highly recommended, ridiculously over the top, hot, sexy, historically accurate (mostly), emotionally available gay pirates! http://www.alienperspective.com/images/Treasure.html

Writing papers...

mara_schnookums — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:04:45 GMT

I should have added 'plz.'

It's not a compound

mara_schnookums — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:33:38 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tICf7MaXyKs I just wrote a short paper on this piece of mashed up billiance.

Prize Winning Cupcakes!

mara_schnookums — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:03:55 GMT

Whoohoo! Yesterday was an awesome cold spring-ish day in mke. I woke up early to make vegan banana monkey cupcakes for the Cream City Collective's cupcake bake-off. The place was packed with queers, punks, artists, babies, and a puppy! Everyone ate cupcakes on the street corner in the sunshine. And oh the cupcakes! Chai, lemon, peanut butter, chocolate, and my favorite the "milwaukee special", made of beer, cheese and pretzels. That would have been good enough, but I won second place! No I have another frilly femmey apron and a gift certificate to the local food co-op. It was so much fun to see people having fun with the monkeys! Ok.. back to homework...

Help me do my homework! Take a quick survey on gender and social networking sites!

mara_schnookums — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:06:49 GMT

Hello all, This gray wisconsin afternoon, I'm putting together a survey for my research methods course. The method of the week is survey. So, this thouroughly qualitative grrl has to figure out how to design a survey and get over her aversion to putting things into categories. I've been reading about interpellation and gender (because I'm reading Judith Butler - as anyone within shorting distance has heard). In my class on digital culture we have been talking about architecture (how assumptions are built into websites). My survey combines the two. I'm asking about your experience with social networking sites and the way they ask you about your gender identity. I made a very short survey (about six questions) that should take about five minutes to answer. Your answers will be anonymous. You will get to feel good about helping me do my homework. I will take the responses and write a one page paper about the process of making the survey and the results. Please! Pretty please! Take the survey! "http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=QbF9_2fR_2bz_2fXxbr_2bSuvh4EQg_3d_3d" Kisses - M

The hermit

mara_schnookums — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 05:36:51 GMT

Mr. Beefy?

mara_schnookums — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:56:47 GMT

This morning there was a cat in my entryway, kicking up a storm of cat complaints. I tried to let him out - no go. I don't blame him, it was about 12 degrees today (and sunny! yay!)' I wouldn't want to go out if i didn't have shoes on. So I go out, I come back. Still there. Knocked on my neighbors' doors. No one home. Email to the neighborhood ladies. I give him tuna. He likes tuna. I'm not sure if he likes me, but he likes the tuna. Right now he is in my house, cruising around. I'll try the neighbors again later. It's nice to have a furry creture here, even if we don't know each other well. This is what he looks like. <purr>

mwahaha

mara_schnookums — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 06:11:14 GMT

Just had to share (isn't that what blogs are for?): this week in my gender and the media classes I had my students read Dan Savage and Susie Bright. We were talking about feminist porn and s&m. I love that I got to read Susie Bright's blog all morning and call it work!

End of the Semester

mara_schnookums — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 21:31:12 GMT

Dear Friendlies, This is an awesome article on seasonal depression. I hope you don't freak out that the only blog post I have put up in three months is on seasonal depression. But there you are. Back to writing papers. http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=445158

Hi and Random Root Vegetable Cartoon

mara_schnookums — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 19:10:34 GMT

Hello friendlies, Life in Milwaukee is going along like a well oiled machine run on cheese. I miss you. Working a job that (so far) doesn't require me to turn off my brain is awesome. Should have switched years ago, but there you are. My apartment is huge and sunny. I finally put together the futon that Laura got for me from madison's hippy christmas. Now I have a couch type thing! And more than that, an uncomfortable bed for guests! Seriously, the futon goes a long way to making me feel less pathetic at home. The dumpster goddesses unleashed their glory again yesterday. I was riding my bike down my alley (in a very bad mood from seeing a movie that pissed me off and from the communists having taken my summer house) and I see a large kitchen table. I've been asking the universe for a table for a few weeks now. Here it was three doors down from my house. Plus there were two cute baby-dykes looking at a box of books next to the table. I asked them if they were taking the table. They said no, so the table was mine. And then they helped me carry it into my house! Thank you, little baby dykes. Thank you universe for answering my table request. Thank you communists that I only have one more day of misery until next month. Thank you femme mafia member for making a movie about gender variance that was accessible and so much fun (wienie roasts, drag queens playing Frisbee, genderqueers playing jump rope). Thank you C&M for putting my artwork in a show. Thank you new friends I've met for being friendly. Now that I have a table, I'm only a few chairs (and some kitchen essentials) away from a dinner party! Yay!

Going to Wisconsin, Send Vegetables

mara_schnookums — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 17:28:26 GMT

We (Spark and Ms Schnookums) are moving to Wisconsin to go to graduate school at the end of the month. After 8 to 9 years in Davis, we think it's time for quite a party! Help us celebrate the awesome community we have here. We'll miss the bike lanes and the farmers' market, the library and radio station, the scorching heat and the tule fog, San Francisco and Tahoe, but mostly, we are going to miss you! Help us make a farewell zine and tell us your favorite M and/ or L adventures. There will be good food (of course), music, a wading pool, and monkeys. The party is this Saturday, July 21st. starting at 2pm. I am a huge Harry Potter fan, so in order to get me to come to my own party on the day the new book comes out, it is Harry Potter themed. You can come in costume if you like (call me for suggestions) or not. Bring any "Most Potente Potions" you wish to consume. No spoilers please! That means, if you know what happens in the book please keep it to yourself. If on page 459, Harry transfigures Voldemort into a ball of yarn and Hermione magically knits him into a very evil sweater, we would like to find that out on our own. (Ah, but who will get the licensing rights to sell the Caustic Cardigans (TM)? Dark Lord and Taylor?) As practice for journalism school, I have distilled the following information for quick reference: Who: You What: Are coming to M and L's Goodbye Party When: On July 21st from 2 pm until late Where: At Our House in Davis (The password is "chocolate frogs") How: By foot, bicycle, car, or broom (sorry, we are not hooked up to the floo network) Why: Because you're going to miss us (or because you caught the HP references faster than a Ravenclaw seeker) P.S. Message me if you have questions. We love you all and we will miss you!

The article I can't get out of my head

mara_schnookums — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 18:58:27 GMT

Seriously. I can't stop thinking about this. "A vast swath of the Pacific, twice the size of Texas, is full of a plastic stew that is entering the food chain. " It's that bit about the tangled collection of trash that is "twice the size of texas" that keeps coming back to me. Twice the fucking size of Texas, and for what? Convenience? Distraction? Because it's what we know? When L and I went on our ill-fated adventure hosting a high school exchange student for three weeks. I bought paper lunch bags and plastic sandwich bags. These are things we never buy. We don't need them. But for some reason, I felt like in order to be a good pseudo-parent I had to make up pretty lunches like my mom used to do. It was weird, and L called me on it. And it was centered around plastic. This is a crime. I wish I weren't guilty. But I am. Every piece of plastic I touch, I recoil, I want to throw it across the room, I want to cry. But it's everywhere. This shit is in our blood. How can I feel anything other than contaminated? So, here it is: http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/travel-leisure/Our_oceans_are_turning_into_plastic_are_we.shtml

Faker Faire

mara_schnookums — Wed, 23 May 2007 16:01:50 GMT

My favorite part of the Maker Faire this last weekend was the Bad Science Fair, or Faker Faire. Basically, it was a judged poster presentation for new discoveries or just plain made up science. It was awesome. There was bad logic everywhere, along with graphs, incomplete data, and dubious premises. I should point out that this was the first science fair I have ever entered. My poster was entitled "The Effect of the Banana Phone on the Comedy Coefficient". Startlingly, adding a banana phone to any situation results in an increase in comedy value. I included pictures from our early experiments. Fig 1 : Monkey Fig 2: Monkey on Banana Phone Clearly, a monkey on its own is funny, but a monkey on a banana phone is even funnier. We then repeated the experiment with something that is not funny: a starving child. Fig 3: Starving Child Fig 4: Starving Child on the Banana Phone The experiment proved that a starving child can be made more humorous (it's still not funny, you disaffected hipsters!) with the addition of a banana phone. We then graphed our findings. Comedy without banana phone is the black line. Comedy with banana phone is the yellow line. Note the point where the two lines diverge, which we have named the "Banana Split". Sadly, My entry didn't win. It lost to an ambitious poster exposing oranges as alien fruit from outer space. I guess the judges were swayed by the resemblence of a navel orange to the Death Star. It was impressive and very hard to understand. Maybe I need to rewrite my findings to be more confusing.

Whole Earth Festival Report

mara_schnookums — Mon, 14 May 2007 17:14:42 GMT

What can I say? I was a big dirty hippie yesterday and spent all day doing the things that big dirty hippies do. I bent rebar with my throat. Seriously. I stood across from a guy I see every week at Delta with a six foot length of steel rebar balanced in the hollows of our throats. There was breathing and chanting (and a sizable audience I was trying not to think about). At a signal between the two of us, we held our breaths and stepped forward, bending the rebar in two and collapsing into each other's arms. It was bizarre. It took a few tries to get over the fear of it. Afterwards I was happy and high on endorphins. I wish I had a big bruise on my neck to show everyone how momentous it was. Then there was the sustainability circus. What amazing fun! Hippies, queers, and punks with accordions! I can't described how funny the synchronized wheelbarrow dancing was. There were also hippie boys balancing shovel on the chins, a mushroom sock puppet show, a couple of sing-a-longs, and pirate jugglers. I left before the unicycle ballet, unfortunately. Davis needs another one of these. I'm envisioning three rings.

T-Shirt Poll

mara_schnookums — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 22:45:46 GMT

I'm designing a t-shirt to give away during KDVS fundraiser next week. So the question is: would you wear it? Also, since I am not a font geek and there are some of you that are - what do you think of the font choices? My fundraiser show will be next Monday at 5 PM CA time. I hope you (meaning my fabulous tribey friends) will call!

The Happiest Place

mara_schnookums — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 18:19:38 GMT

http://wikitravel.org/en/Hell From Getting In: By handbasket The easiest - and oftentimes the quickest - way to get to Hell is in a handbasket. And if you do, a nice way to not have to worry about the giant handbasket you will need to figure out how to park is to go in a bamboo one that will neatly burn up on your arrival. Get out quick!! From Shakesville. Check out the pictures.

Very pretty meme

mara_schnookums — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 18:26:30 GMT

http://friends.imagini.net/vdna.php?uid=181056-7e5e&srv=iwebhd6 Very pretty. Kind of weird and commercialized. Very weird, actually. But it distracted me from work and reminded me that I really want to go camping before I move. (That's right, I'm moving. Yes, I am going to the "cold, bad place", and I couldn't be more excited.)

In the catalog!

mara_schnookums — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:50:54 GMT

Make your own: http://www.blyberg.net/card-generator/

Monkey Party!!!!

mara_schnookums — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 18:18:55 GMT

Best. Birthday. Ever. My grrlie arranged a surprise monkey party for my birthday this Sunday. I knew something was going on, because she seemed to be taking a lot of phone calls and walking into the other room to talk. Also, my boss from the radio called me on Sunday morning to "return my call". Me: I didn't call you. Him: Yes you did. Me: Maybe my pocket called you? Him: (annoyed) And left a message? Me: Maybe you should check your messages. Grrlie said afterword that he was fired for nearly blowing the cover. I still didn't know it would be a monkey party with bananas everywhere, banana soup, flaming bananas and ice cream, and a monster shaped cake. The best part was that I wore a monkey sweater at my grrlie's urging. Actually, the best part was walking into A's beautiful house and seeing 25 (!) people with monkey puppets there to wish me a happy birthday including friends who came up from the bay area. I felt loved, hugely and beautifully loved.

Santorum is Out of Office!

mara_schnookums — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 16:43:52 GMT

Root beer floats for everyone!

Davis and California Voter Guide

mara_schnookums — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 23:39:55 GMT

3 queers. 3 laptops. 2 bottles of rubber cement. 1 box of veggie taquitos. 80 hours of combined work. Unlimited snarkiness. Please read it! http://www.qzap.org/v4/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=26&func=fileinfo&id=145

Bring on the Gravy!

mara_schnookums — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 23:16:37 GMT

Via Susie Bright at http://susiebright.blogs.com/susie_brights_journal_/2006/10/turkey_stuffed_.html: I read this article two or three times, thinking this shit has to be made up. Alas, no; we have the menu. Walter Scheib, white house chef for the Clinton years, was canned in 2005 even after making this delicious pork filled dinner. It sums up for me everything that is wrong with politics. Instead of creating a celebrtory meal, this chef had to use corporate donors' food products at every turn. Here's a dish I won't be making for Thanksgiving. Coca-Cola brined Pilgrim's Pride turkey with Dunkin Donuts old-fashioned cake doughnut sweet and savory stuffing* Coca-Cola brine 1 1/4 cups salt 1 quart Coca-Cola 2 bay leaves 1 medium onion, peeled and halved 2 cloves 1 10- to 12-pound Pilgrim's Pride Whole Butter Basted Turkey 1. Place salt and Coca-Cola in a large deep pot and whisk until salt crystals dissolve. Whisk in 4 quarts cold water. Pin bay leaves to onion halves with cloves and add them to brine. Let mixture cool to room temperature. 2. Add Pilgrim's Pride turkey, placing a large heavy pot or sealed zip-top bag filled with cold water on top to keep bird submerged in Coca-Cola. Place pot in refrigerator and marinate overnight. Dunkin Donuts old-fashioned cake doughnut sweet and savory stuffing 6 cups Dunkin Donuts old-fashioned cake doughnuts, chopped 2 cups diced onion 1/2 cup butter 2 cups cranberries 2 teaspoons dried rosemary 1/2 tablespoon dried sage 1 cup chicken broth Cook onion in butter or margarine over low heat until soft. Add doughnuts, cranberries, rosemary and sage, chicken broth, salt and pepper to taste. Mix gently but thoroughly. Roast Turkey Remove Pilgrim's Pride turkey from Coca-Cola brine. Thoroughly rinse turkey under a slow stream of cool water, rubbing gently to release salt and soda residue, both inside and out. Pat skin and both interior cavities dry. Remove neck and giblets. Begin lightly spooning doughnut stuffing into the neck cavity, then into the body cavity. After the bird has been stuffed, secure the legs to the tail. If the band of skin is not present, tie the legs securely to the tail with string. Twist the wing tips under the back of the turkey so they won't overcook. Roast turkey, breast side down, in a preheated 325 degree F oven for 2 hours. During this time, baste legs and back twice with Coca-Cola. *Recipe provided courtesy of White House kitchen.

Monkeys are sensitive creatures

mara_schnookums — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 17:44:50 GMT

I was looking on the internets for information on caffeine and how it affects me. I found this: Monkeys are sensitive creatures. During the Boer War, the enemies of the British often poisoned their food supplies. Soldiers used monkeys to test the food. They chose what to eat by holding the food to their lower jaw and if the food was poisoned, the monkey would throw it away. A natural health practitioner, fascinated by the account, decided to test baboons to see if they had a similar ability. An apple was injected with strong coffee by a hypodermic needle. Two apples were given, the untouched apple was eaten hungrily by one baboon, a second baboon received the injected apple. He held it to his jaw, let out an angry screeching sound then tried to attack the experimenter. When he was given a good apple he went off to the corner and ate happily. It's from a throughly weird site called Freedomyou, a christian apocolypitc diet site. Favorite articles include: "How Satan Uses Addition" and "Are you Addicted to Pleasure?" There is a quiz on your level of self control which includes the following question: 16. Do you have a problem with any form of sexual perversion, whether it be fantasizing, pornography or paging through the Sears catalog? That makes me think of Moe from the Simpsons. The test is loaded with bizarre assumptions about gender. Several times it tells you to answer honestly and not cheat by letting "the wife" help. It implies that men are boorish, physical creatures who can't resist an addiction, and that the women are ertheral, spiritual beings put here to help the men overcome. Augustine! I blame you for this.