Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

Month: September 2024

  • Cookies

    When the expensive cookies arrived, Gary would only eat the oatmeal ones, because they were “healthy.” I decided to make him oatmeal cookies, and I turned to the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook because only the most scientifically validated cookies could show my love. There I found Chocolate-chunk Oatmeal Cookies with Pecans and Dried Cherries, and…

  • TWIL: Cadaveric spasm

    This very ghoulish lesson came about because I wondered if a person can die with a last facial expression that will stay. It didn’t seem to make sense, given that your facial expressions are caused by muscles, and dying makes your muscles relax. Well, it doesn’t work for facial muscles, but bigger muscles like legs…

  • Cooking class

    Friend Anne won a chance to participate in a cooking class for TeddyJ associates at Kitchen Social in Chesterfield, and I came along as her plus one. I have always enjoyed baking with Anne: she is a natural teacher and I’m a natural learner. I’m a learner and an assistant, like an Aristotle / Igor…

  • Gary on steroids

    Gary started a course of steroids to battle to his drywall/tomato/drug allergy. I have been on high doses of steroid pills twice: both times to titrate down off MS IV steroids. I started at 10 pills. Gary is starting at six, which is double the normal dose that people get for, say, poison ivy. High…

  • Weekly Paint Progress: 9/26

    This week Cartoon Cat went from this: … to this. Worked on the eyes and jaws. Mphf. Done.

  • The Choice: 2024

    Every four years I watch the Frontline special The Choice. Pre-Trump: in 2008 and 2012 it was interesting. It was a chance to see a harsh criticism of both candidates. Post- Trump: I have not seen it be quite so balanced because [SPOILER]Trump is a hideous human being. Anyone they prop up against Trump is…

  • A Spot

    Just skip this if you are tired of my distasteful interest in sex. =============== Hot Matron Summer continues but with a twist: this summer seems to have a strong educational element. I am spending less time in the skin of a 20-year-old man, and more in the skin of an 11-year-old me. At 11 I…

  • Golf carts

    I went to an outdoor concert near my house this past weekend. It was in a part of my neighborhood known for quaint streets, little specialty chocolate shops, weekend buffets. It’s the place with the butcher shop that tried to shame me for buying the veal that they themselves were selling me. This was my…

  • TWIL: A new term

    This week I learned the term “negging” — a technique used by pick-up artists. It suggests that a man can capture a beautiful woman’s interest by giving a backhanded compliment or saying something negative about her. Supposedly, it works by both presenting the man as a divergent thinker, and also undermining the beautiful woman’s confidence…

  • In which I am again confronted with change

    That title. That title is in sentence case. This is because the writing style at work has been adjusted so that all titles will be in sentence case. It seems putting titles in title case is “old-fashioned.” I immediately thought I should write an email in which every Sentence Was In Title Case, But I…