Category: [miscellaneous experiments]

different crafts, recipes, and random activities to try out

Posted in [miscellaneous experiments], [writer stuff]

Collecting Memories

Posted on by Larissa Lee

I went through a box the other day. It was full of papers and folders, various old documents I’d been needing to organize. As I rummaged through my poetry, notes passed in high school, yearbook inserts, and random research printouts, I realized something about myself.

Some people collect trinkets, ticket stubs, and pictures. I collect memories.

Everyone keeps memories of their past, good and bad. The striking ones stay in their minds, while others fade quickly.

Mine just stay.

I’ve always had a moderately photographic memory. It’s not as awesome or awe-inspiring as those who skim a book and can name the exact pages that include the word “rainbow” on them. But it’s strong enough to remember a pattern when it’s seen again, even if I don’t remember registering it before. It’s strong enough to remember a face years after a name is forgotten. And it’s strong enough for a smell to send me crashing back to a very specific moment in time and space.

The taste of fake watermelon, like bubble gum, makes my pulse race as I flash back to sitting in the hospital in Germany, not understanding anyone or knowing why my mom had fallen to the floor in a seizure. Panic rises and I feel nausea creeping up on me. My mother’s seizure was in the summer of 2002, while we were stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany.

The smell of wet sand, even in El Paso, often sent me back to moments on the beach in California as a kid. My dad would occasionally get up really early with us (or just me) and go for a beach walk. Last time I smelled wet sand, I remembered a trip with Derek and Dad. We went to a part of the beach where you had to climb down a sloped rock face to get to the sand; we had to be careful, because it was a real climb, not just a steep hill. I don’t remember much beyond that flash of a moment, but I clearly feel the rough lava rock and cement chunks under my hands. I can feel the cold breeze from the ocean as it blows my hair around. I lived in California from 1993 to the middle of 1997, so that trip is jumbled in time.

My space heater got really toasty under my desk last week. That particular morning, the feeling of my skin reacting to the direct heat flashed me back to my grandma’s old house. She had a bench swing with a cloth cover, and I once laid on it in the summer sun of Washington to take a nap. That happened in 2005, just before I started college in the Fall. I know there are other memories of the same bench and similar naps, but my mind travelled to that specific experience.

Memory is a boon sometimes.

In smaller, less intense ways, it’s helped me with my jobs. When I worked in the bookstore, I could tell you where a book was and whether we had it with about 90% accuracy without the use of our computer system. As part of my duties, I alphabetized sections throughout our department, as well as putting up new stock. This process had me looking at all shelves and all books on a semi-regular basis, which allowed my mind to collect data. Even if I wasn’t sure about the title of a book, if I was told “It’s mostly orangish-red with a blue streak down the front, but I don’t know what it’s called” I could go straight to “The 50 Laws of Power” in our Politics section.

In my current job, it’s helped me to remember why a student had a hold, even if there wasn’t a thorough note in the system. For example, the hold might say “Needs to verify residency status based on answers to residency questions”, but I remember they claimed no affiliation with the military yet wrote a note in comments about their sponsor. That may not make too much sense to you, but for someone asking about the student, that’s information from half a dozen questions on the application. If I entered the application, I remember the name the minute I see it. There was even a student once who typo’d in their own name, but when I pulled them up and explained that they needed to verify it with an ID card, they claimed the “person who entered it” did it wrong; I grabbed their app and showed them the typo (Ahsley instead of Ashley, or something similar). There was no note in the system, just my memory of thinking that they’d probably need to get that corrected; I’m not allowed to assume someone mistyped their own name, so I enter applications “as is”.

Memory can be a pitfall, making relationships a deliberate measure of pros and cons.

I can’t forget. It’s not that I don’t believe in the idea of “forgive and forget”. I just don’t have the capacity to forget things, especially if they affected my emotions in a dramatic way. I’ve had to learn to file away every argument, every laugh, every tear into a folder with your name on it. With purpose, I filed away those memories you create; with purpose, I objectively re-exam them when new ones are added. If our relationship’s balance falls too far into the negative, I end it. It sounds clinical and harsh, but it’s all I can do. I’ve tried to pretend before, and bad relationships turned into abusive ones.

However, I hold myself to a personal, ethical standard. I will never use unrelated past memories in a current argument. Ever. If we’re fighting about money, then only money-related memories are allowed out of the file. If we’re arguing over your family, then only family-related issues surface. I will not budge. As long as you fight fair, so will I. A good memory is no excuse for poor behavior.

Memory gets complicated, too. Especially when it’s missing pieces.

I worked at the bookstore for two years, and now the college for two as well. There are faces I see now, shopping for groceries or browsing a store, that I can’t place. My mind remembers them, even speaking to them in depth, but it can’t remember which job they’re from. Most conversations I remember weren’t work-specific, but instead involved a book they saw me reading or a shared like of my chainmail pentacle necklace.

I have moments that confuse me. A smell, a flash of color, a sound. Suddenly I’m scared, or angry, or panicked… and I don’t know why. My mind flickers with a memory, but I can’t grasp it enough to pin it down. All I can tell myself is that it *is* a reaction to a memory, and then I soothe myself as my mind races to find the source. Those are my least favorite memories, the ones that hit and run hard.

Going through the box of papers had me looking through my junior and senior yearbooks. I could tell you a memory of every single person in my class, as well as the one before it (thanks to my brother and smart kids in advanced classes, regardless of grade). I may not remember a name, but show me a face and I have a story. Show me a classmate, and I have even more; there will be jokes, relationships, a map of their high school experience in my sphere of memory.

I can’t give you directions to follow, but plunk me down at my old house in Germany and I could walk you to the Buch Habel (bookstore) downtown, using all the shortcuts that foot travel can allow. The same goes for anywhere I’ve lived; if I were there again, I could tell you everything in the sphere of my existence there. Clearly, I didn’t walk all over Fort Knox; my memories of locations are all within a couple miles walk of the house we lived in. But I could draw you a detailed map of Bamberg’s army base, considering it was a 2×2 mile dot of America in Germany. I can still map out Hastings for you, both the old store layout and the new one, from memory. The same goes for my Walmart and HEB, though I have three of both within 30 minutes of my house (so I don’t have all three memorized… yet).

I could draw a floor plan of every house I’ve lived in since first grade. And every classroom. I can draw you (with my meager skills) the exact branches of the two trees we often climbed in California. Or the “map” of the “village” we LARPed in as children, off to save some daft princess (after I argued my way out of playing that part… I liked Xena too much to be a normal princess). I can tell you exactly where I was for each poem I ever wrote, while I was writing it, and why.

My memories are what I took from place to place. Normal people, who grow up living in one or two places in a normal town, get to collect stuff and friends. I collected books and knicknacks for a long while, but mostly I collected memories. Moments are my life’s currency, the payments received for being awake and aware as I move through the world.

I try to view my memory as a gift. It made me smart, by allowing me to absorb ridiculous amounts of information quickly and with little effort. It made me friendly, by allowing me to speak to people as they needed to be spoken to (in both speech and body language). It made me wise, by allowing me to infer connections between very distant experiences and points of data; my mind is like a giant web of facts, figures, and ideas. Riding my thought-trains takes a bit of courage and focus.

In getting to know myself all over again, I’m working on and with my memories. Reviewing what we think we already know sometimes yields surprising results.

Posted in [miscellaneous experiments]

What if…

Posted on by Larissa Lee

If you could only eat what you were willing to grow and kill yourself, what would your diet look like?

Let’s start with some facts.

Fact #1: I don’t hunt. It has nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with a lack of know-how and opportunity. I also don’t fish (minus the extremely rare occasion here or there).

Fact #2: I used to have a green thumb. With Texas plants, I’ve been having a horrid time. However, I think it’s a combination of bad luck (my cat pissed in my pots!), poor planning (non-Texas plants in Texas), and adjustment (forgetting that an outdoors Texas plant will not like the sudden cold of my indoor, air-conditioned house). Outside of my Texas experience, I’ve always had a green thumb and been just fine growing any number of plants.

Fact #3: I’m an adventurous eater. I’ve purposefully sought out “strange” foods, like blood sausage, chicken heart stew, and ostrich. I enjoy trying new things, and I’m not squeamish about it.

Now, my answer to the original question. What would my diet look like?

First of all, I’d no longer be eating breads and pastas. Wheat is not a plant I’d want to expend energy and resources trying to cultivate. My foods would be things like cucumbers, bottleneck squash, and tomatoes. I’d grow root veggies, though having never done so I’d probably learn how to do so the hard way. I’d also try to cultivate berries and fruit trees; however, the trees would be planted and left to thrive or die (they take a couple years to be producers, from what I recall). I’d want low-maintenance foods, and if the chance were provided before having to grow on my own, I’d do a TON of research on what does well in Texas naturally.

Secondly, I’d still eat meat. Mind you, I lack the skills to hunt. I wouldn’t be eating cow, pig, or deer unless someone taught me those skills (and provided equipment for it) or traded me for some of my veggies. However, I have no problem fishing and catching things like crawfish. Also, I know I could wring a chicken or rabbit’s neck if I wanted meat. As I said, I’m not squeamish. Pigeons would be nice, too, assuming I had access to urban areas and a net (hehehe).

Lastly, I wouldn’t waste. I don’t kill the chickens and cows that make their way to my dinner table. But if I were in a situation where I was killing my own chicken for dinner, I’d definitely be cooking any and all organ meats. The same thought applies to all animals; I’d finally be able to take part in making the most of an animal’s sacrifice.

My final thoughts on this question is that it would all depend. Why am I only able to eat what I grow and kill? If it’s because of a social shift, like everyone in this town is doing it or something, then there’s a gradual build up to self-maintenance of food sources. But if it were a apocalyptic situation, all decisions would depend on the overall state of humanity. (Meaning, if there are zombies walking around I’m not planting a garden outside.)

I also know that some of my friends would become vegetarians. They admittedly couldn’t bring themselves to kill an animal (other than small fish or crawfish) on their own. I can understand that, in a society where many of us never interact with an animal other than a cat or dog at home. We don’t understand our food sources except in a distant, disconnected way. Maybe that will change… maybe…

Posted in [miscellaneous experiments]

Calling all -Tarians!

Posted on by Larissa Lee

Vegetarians, Flexitarians, and all other -tarians out there! Help!

How do you deal with our reality? When so much of what we have access to (food-wise, and product-wise) contains toxic chemicals… When so many things go unlabeled in products we use daily… When even trying to buy only what you need (versus what you want) exposes you to these chemicals over and over… When your abilities and resources don’t allow you to access the perfect foods all the time… How do you handle the overwhelming sense of dread, the depression associated awareness of a problem that is unsolvable on the individual level?

I read the news, and I often read the Green section on various sites, learning all sorts of new and wonderful things… as well as harsh realities. The poisons in our waters, our ground, our food, and our very houses. I can’t avoid them. I can’t go back in time and rebuild my rental house as a green home full of safe products. I can’t stop the societal structures that control the way my water is processed, the way businesses run, the way cars aren’t forced to go greener, and so on. I can’t guarantee that my healthy choices are actually any better than old ones (look at BPA and it’s replacements). So much of the exposure I’m forced to endure is literally out of my hands, regardless of the choices I make.

I can’t live off the grid, self-sufficient. That would require money to start off such an endeavor, as well as skills I don’t possess. And I like my Netflix, thank you very much! But more importantly, I don’t think I could adapt to complete removal from a society I’ve been indoctrinated into my whole life. (To be honest, it’s the money more than anything that stops me. If I had the money, I’d plop it down on a house made as green and grid-free as possible… but that’s pricey!)

I eat as a flexitarian to try and make a change, for my health and the planet. I love vegetarian food, and I’m okay with rarely including meat in my diet. When I finish with my newest stint as a vegetarian, I intend to stick to the “green” meats at my local Nature’s Grocer. They’re pricey, but they’re better for me and Earth. But I can’t always afford to spend the money it takes to get the greenest veggies and products. And I’m uneducated, slowly building my own awareness of what is bad and how to replace it.

It’s so frustrating! Overwhelming! Maddening!

How can we avoid sinking and giving up, when faced with so much impossibility? My great grandchildren, if lobbying and global change happens, might get to enjoy a cleaner world with fewer hard choices… but I’m pretty much screwed. I’m 25, a quarter of the way through a long life. Too many issues are stacked against us at this time, too much to change in the short time between generations. I’m scared for us all, because yelling and screaming and begging are failing to bring the world’s attention to our emergency. How can that change, when people are so willing to experience extreme climate change first hand and pretend it’s a fluke? How can we save ourselves?

I guess my main question to any of my readers is this: How do you handle the stress of living on this planet today?

Posted in [miscellaneous experiments]

Living in Star Trek

Posted on by Larissa Lee

Note 1: Star Wars junkies, I’m sorry. But the technology of lightsabers and death stars is still pretty far off. Holograms, less so (Tupac, anyone?). I’m not trying to be mean and pretend we’re not also advancing toward a Star Wars style universe, but let’s face it… Star Wars wasn’t based around the evolution of Earth and the human race; it was about other planets, imaginary and removed from our own track of evolution and growth.

Note 2: I’m only a mild Trekkie. I don’t like the classic series, I own almost no collectibles (one tin doesn’t count), and I can’t quote anything. For a fair measure of my Trekkie-ness, I can use either hand to do a Vulcan salute, I can describe almost any episode I’ve watched with a decent amount of detail (I’m a natural storyteller), and I’d totally buy a “Learn Klingon” language CD set if I saw one, just for kicks.

I found myself completely thrilled earlier this week, though, while watching “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. Captain Picard was looking over a report, and then LaForge showed him something in Engineering… and I had a geek epiphany.

We have tablets just like Star Trek. We have wireless data transfer. We have the ability to synchronize two or more devices to each other. We have touch screens and machines that can process data faster than we can enter it. We have memory storage capacities that rival the human brain on a good day. We HAVE Star Trek.

Think about it. I have my Kindle Fire tablet, which I use for most of my online activities. I can access my bank (another computer system), I can make purchases (a merchant system), I can find friends and dates (a social system), I can find data on almost anything (with critical thinking, an information system)… I can then send that information and interactivity to my smart phone, or a desktop computer. I can get on my XBox 360 and do the same. I can also find an app for almost anything, like one that tells me if any of the stores near me sell sunglasses. I never have to disconnect from information about the world around me, things I couldn’t know just by looking at a person, place, or thing.

Some people don’t like that. But stick with me, it gets better.

Then add our growing ability as a species to adapt and multitask. Another moment earlier this week had me suddenly aware of my normal activities for about ten minutes at work. I was doing data entry on college applications (my job), clicking on news articles between portions (to keep myself informed), drinking my water, checking my work email when something popped up, tapping my Kindle on the desk to awaken it and change the song playing in my headphones, and answering my phone. No task caused me to lose focus on the others; it is my process, steamlined to synchronize the steps with my natural rhythm. Everything gets done, nothing gets overlooked.

We’ve evolved to this point.

I’m very happy with it. While I agree that the affect electronics and the like are having is intimidating, I believe too many people fear dramatic change. And changing to be almost Borg, integrating technology so inclusively into our lives, is a dramatic decision.

(Another note: the Borg weren’t always scary, crazy assimilators. They started off wanting to provide the perfect integration of individual skills into a group use… it just got WAY out of hand.)

How do YOU feel about living in Star Trek?

Posted in [miscellaneous experiments], [witchcraft & wonder]

The Beat of a Heart

Posted on by Larissa Lee

In my personal opinion, organ meats are earth-friendly. Why? Because we don’t kill the animals for their organs, we kill them for the muscle-meats.

That said, I’ve only ever had cow liver and chicken gizzards. The liver was a delicious experiment my mom did when I was young, a food all of her kids happened to love. The chicken gizzards I tried as an adult from a local fried chicken place. Chewy, but not too shabby.

Today while grocery shopping, I decided to make this weekend a sacred meal experiment. Originally, I only planned to grab some rabbit (first time for me) and prepare it in a magickal and sacred way. However, my browsing of the butchered meats led to a purchase including bison steaks and chicken hearts.

The chicken is a wonderful, under-appreciated animal. In food, its meat is versatile like nobody’s business. In life, they represent fertility and curiosity that leads to knowledge. We’re so separated from our meat sources that I’ve rarely had a whole bird since childhood, and I haven’t ever looked at the animal and wondered about the organs bundled inside. As with turkey, the organ bits were either trash or cooked for the family pet.

So all that said, tonight’s experiment was chicken heart stew. You can find the recipe I used here. If you happen to enjoy cow liver, I think you’d enjoy chicken hearts. The flavor is amazingly similar, as is the texture once they’re stewed. And as $0.89 per pound, they’re an amazingly affordable protein source.

I will definitely eat chicken hearts again. So many animal parts get discarded because of our squeamish culture; I like to think that I can personally make an effort to help use “all parts” of the animal (or at least the ones available).

Tomorrow will be rabbit stew. Rabbit and I have an interesting relationship; I intent to meditate with Her before cooking, and to give proper respect and honor during the process. Unfortunately, I don’t believe the meat I purchased has any bones (damn convenience strikes again). I’ve been collecting and cleaning bones from various food animals for my totemic practices. We shall see…

Posted in [miscellaneous experiments]

Adventures in Vegetarianism

Posted on by Larissa Lee

Vegetarian diets are popular in the pagan community. Reasons vary, from health to personal views on animal spirits to energy intake, and so on. As with any topic, you could ask a hundred pagans just to get a hundred and fifty-seven responses to their views on vegetarianism.

In high school, I was a pescatarian. I ate vegetarian meals, but I also consumed water animals. At the time, my reasons stemmed from both an overload of protein at family meals and a discontent with the way farm animals are raised. Because I’m a wonderfully lazy little girl, I often cooked ramen noodles or rice and added vegetables as a filler. For three years, I managed to gladly avoid beef, pork, and chicken. Then times changed, and I went back to a mixed diet.

That said, I know from experience that [a] I enjoy a meat-free (or mostly so) diet and [b] I believe that I’m a true omnivore and find no shame in being so.

Now comes the fun part.

I’ve decided that my diet bores me. I don’t often cook, instead settling on easy frozen meals for lunches at work. My pallet is listless, nostalgic over the memories of simple vegetable dishes and plain rice. To assuage my hunger for something more, I’m embracing a fully vegetarian diet for two weeks. Starting next week, I’ll be trying out dozens of recipes I’ve collected in an effort to branch out and try new things.

My goal is to find various dishes that I would gladly make again. They all have E-A-S-Y as a major ingredient; who wants to spend an hour fixing tomorrow’s lunch? Many of the recipes are meat-able; with very little modification, I could un-vegetarianize them for myself or others down the road. However, the point is to find recipes that I enjoy as-is.

As I cook and devour these (hopefully) delicious recipes, I’ll be posting them here and sharing my thoughts. This endeavor is also spiritual, though. I find that my tired, bored pallet and tummy lead to a tired and bored ME. Changing up my diet will also change up my energy levels, encouraging me to be more active both physically and magically. I want to think about what I eat, and why. Every ingredient holds potential magical energies, waiting to be unlocked by my awareness. Also, spring’s approaching and the idea of a home garden is appealing.

Walk with me while I try this out. Share experiences, offer recipes. And try something new. You never know what you might find…

Posted in [miscellaneous experiments]

When Generations Meet

Posted on by Larissa Lee

Today was not a good day. It wasn’t even a mediocre day. Today was one of those days when waking up became mistake number one. Getting up was number two. Between medication problems, work frustrations, and overall unhappiness with my day, I just wasn’t in the head space to be human to anyone. That said, I took myself to Hastings, ordered a coffee and a bagel, and sat down to enjoy a moment of solitude…

…until some strange, 67-year-old woman asked if she could join me.

Dark and wrinkled like a raisin, she smelled like typical grandma-smell does. She looked frumpy and frail as she lowered herself in a chair next to me. Wanting to avoid conversation, I looked around the store as I ate my bagel in silence. Essentially, I pretended she wasn’t there.

Then she started talking.

At first, she asked simple questions. How about this heat? Do you think they have any blueberry bagels left? I made noncommittal noises and tried to politely be left alone, but then she started to tell me about her day. About her visit to the old folks’ home to see some friends. About her recent hospital trip and a new spot on her lungs and heart. About her eleven children, the youngest as old as my mother. About her job as a substitute teacher, and her fears about retirement. As her story unfolded, I found myself turning to face her, my interest sincerely peaked by her ramblings.

I could feel what she felt. Her joy at being a great grandmother, many times over. Her frustration with the youth of today, and their parents. Her fear about not being able to pay her rent, especially if she retired. We shared. I told her about my experiences working at Hastings, about my hopes for my future children, about appreciating the opportunities I had from being an Armybrat while disliking the moves (just like her children). As we sat and talked, our conversation spun over a vast range of topics. Mostly, I let an old woman use my ear to ease a little of the loneliness she feels when she goes home to watch old westerns by herself.

Two hours passed unnoticed.

She’s older than my grandmother, black, Christian in a way that warms the heart, and deeply southern. I’m a young white girl from the West coast who dances under the full moon each month. When she left, I realized that we never exchanged names. We shared laughter and fears, hopes and angers. In a way, we both had an unvoiced need for a kind ear… and we ended up answering each other’s need at that little, rickety cafe table. I find myself both awed and humbled by the connection I found with a woman who I could be no different from unless she were born on Mars. I thank the Gods for the opportunity to Listen, fully and truly.