emlocke

emlocke logo with teal letter 'k'

  • Time out. Time in.

    You might say my run for daily posts in November ended with an incapacitating muscle cramp.  Ouch.

    I had about two hours to recover this morning.  My ride to the airport didn’t arrive until 11, but I got out of bed at 8 because I so often leave for work while my roommate is eating breakfast and watching Saved by the Bell, and I wanted time to experience that for myself.  After Zack Morris got in and out of a bind involving Mr. Belding, a girl, phone impersonations, and detention, I took a hot, hot shower and finished packing for San Antonio.

    This is what I played on iTunes while I tried to pick out four days worth of wardrobe appropriate for Texas in November:
    I Feel The Earth Move by Carol King
    Extraordinary by Liz Phair
    You Shook Me All Night Long by AC/DC
    Delicious by Semisonic
    Don’t Phunk with My Heart by Black Eyed Peas

  • I resolve to turn the volume down

    By the time I came across 2 1/2-months-to-New-Year’s-Resolutions Resolutions through Design Crush, it was almost half a month down, two to go, nearing the end of October.  It remindes me so much of the “It’s okay . . . ” pages in Glamour, my favorite magazine pages of all time, the pages that single handedly lead me to choose that magazine over all the others when I’m in line at the airport or under the helmet dryer at a salon.

    Unlike all the placid allowances made by Condé Nast, some of the resolutions pinch me.  13. Remember, love doesn’t find you on its own. Oh.  31. Don’t waste another second. Please? Fine, fine.  Since you asked nicely.  I’ll try to try.

    Just over the cusp and into November, the day after a call was made for our resolutions, new updates ceased.  Did the project run out of steam?  Funds?  Resolve?

    This is the resolution I submitted:

    Maybe not the metaphor one would expect.  Then again, less or lessened volume isn’t always a bad thing, metaphorically speaking.  And literally, it’s almost certainly a good idea.  Turn the volume down, please.  Protect your hearing.  Be kind to your ears.

  • I recommend Nutella to replenish the chocolatey hazelnut reserves in the bloodstream

    I’ve always wondered about comfort food—is it a specific type of food?  The way Chinese Food is, at least as far as my apathetic Western pallet can tell, a specific type of food?

    For a long time, I associated the term so closely with macaroni and cheese that I wouldn’t have put it past myself to point at a pot of elbow pasta and cheddar syrup and say, “please pass the comfort food?”  Then it was linked to mashed potatoes and I thought “comfort” cuisine must have a Thanksgiving significance.  Then I learned that BBQ chicken and collard greens comfort Southern diners.  And one Sunday morning in college, someone glanced at my plate-sized waffle and clucked, “comfort food?” and I figured it must equate ‘hangover food.’

    There is an element of nature versus nurture in defining comfort food.  As a general rule, “comfort foods”are carbohydrate-based.  I could pick a different comfort food any day of the week; I think my physical cravings manifest as emotional cravings based on what my body needs.  Sometimes I want desperately for red meat—a temporary iron deficiency?  Sometimes I can’t stop thinking about apples with peanut butter—low blood sugar?  And sometimes I crave spaghetti, a carbohydrate through and through, even in whole wheat noodles, but it doesn’t always sound appetizing without Boca burger ‘meat’ sauce—not enough protein?

    I think I like Latin American food so much because I like the taste of multiple saturated flavors blended together.  Hot or cold; homemade, ordered, or microwaved, it tastes simple and complete at once.  It sustains—nature.  And yet, I recognize instantly the memory, the nurture associated with cheese melted on a tortilla.  No meat, no beans, no salsa.  In the toaster oven for two and a half minutes, fold in half, nibble.  The crisped edges and soft, warm center remind me of sitcoms on the couch after school with my mom.  I relish every bite—hold the relish.

  • I didn’t actually hate not having a cell phone

    Last month I lost my cell phone on the IKEA shuttle bus.  I was not drunk; I did not drop it in a toilet; I was on my way home to put together my new filing cabinet and go to bed at 11PM.

    I didn’t realize it was missing until the next morning and I had a heck of a time contacting the outside world again.  My roommate was away for the weekend and we don’t have a landline, so I turned to my laptop.  I e-mailed my brother, who has a BlackBerry, and asked him to call our house and ask my mom to sign in to AIM.  He was in class (on a Saturday?), and since my parents don’t [know how to] text, he had to wait a couple of hours before calling.  When he got in touch with them, it took approximately seventeen minutes for my mother to boot up the computasaurus.

    With my mom on AIM and my brother on Gchat, my dad got on the phone to AT&T to switch my number over to their family plan.  Thank goodness my Verizon contract was up the previous weekend.  Perfect timing, Bad Karma.

    Meanwhile, my pink Razr was out there in the big bad world.  According to my account status on the Verizon website, no calls had been made since the last call I received myself on Friday, and so I wondered where it could be.  But while I crossed my fingers that my phone was down a storm drain along 9th street, someone racked up $515.51 in text messages, calling card charges, long-distance calls to the Dominican Republic, and Lil Wayne ringtones.  Oh, and a picture message to someone on Match.com.

    Let this be a lesson to all of you: if you have any reason to think that your cell phone could be in untrustworthy hands, please log in to your service provider’s website and suspend your service temporarily.  Even if you have a feeling it might be on your desk at work or in your boyfriend’s car, an inkling of doubt is reason enough to hold the phone.

    The Verizon website makes it simple; there is no charge and you don’t have to sign a new contract or order a new phone right that second, so if your phone does turn up, you can reactivate the service.  I have fewer nice things to say about the accuracy of the account usage details reported on the site, but I should have known better than to depend on those.  To put off suspending my service and hope for the best was lazy and against my better judgment.

    It took two cumulative hours on the phone with Verizon, but they shrank that bill down to $121 something.  And it took too weeks, but I finally got my new phone (goodbye pink Motorola, hello dark purple LG!) and activated it and I’m starting to add phone numbers in one by one.  There will be no Facebook events or groups in honor of my foolish misfortune and someone else’s malevolent fortune!  Nor will there be any Lil Wayne ringtones.  I will consider Sara Bareilles, however.

  • I am thankful

    For my natural hair color
    That professor is a gender neutral pronoun in English
    That my parents made sure I always had a car when I needed one
    For the Computer Art classes offered at my high school
    For hair elastics

  • I had a Babar calendar when I was a kid and now I think Gregorian time is an imperialist mechanism*

    In the second week of 2008, I decided I had to have the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Shoes calendar on the wall in my office for the rest of the year.  I had to go to four different Barnes & Nobles to find a copy.  This year I planned ahead.


    The Metropolitan Museum of Art Shoes and the Fashion Institute of Technology Handbags 2009 Mini Calendars, published by Andrews McMeel, $7.99 each at Barnes and Noble

    And even with months to spare, I couldn’t decide between Shoes and FIT’s Handbags for 2009.  So I ordered both.  And therefore, got free shipping out of the deal.  I can hang one up at home.  Another reminder to pay the rent is never a bad thing (unless it comes accompanied by the temptation to purchase shoes or a handbag).

    On a slightly different note, next year is gonna be two-thousand-when?  Which rhymes with two-thousand-ten.  Which is the year after next and therefore even more astounding.

    *Not really.  But I would love to have another Babar calendar.  I might just be a sentimentalist.

  • This is what yesterday (and today) felt like to me


    Flutter of butterflies via ffffound.

    This week I have been listening to:
    Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1
    Let Me Touch You For Awhile     by Allison Krauss
    Good Mother by Jann Arden
    United by Bon Jovi
    Running by Evermore

  • Do you know what pride looks like?

    Today, I took responsibility.  Today, I stood up for myself.

    Today, I was inspired by a candidate and by my country.

    Tonight, hope has new meaning.  Tonight, tomorrow holds new promise.

  • K is still my favorite letter

    My very first online identity was JKBosco.  Bosco was my cat’s name.  In this case, J/K didn’t mean “just kidding,” and they didn’t stand for “Jack’s kiss,” which is what every girl in the eighth grade wanted to talk about after seeing Titanic (the first time, the second time, the twelfth time).  J and K were my favorite letters of the alphabet.

    You know, George Eastman formulated the name of his camera company based on his favorite letter of the alphabet.

    Titanic was on TV over the weekend.  I’ve learned to turn it off right around the 94-minute mark, which is when this colossal crag creeps out of the darkness and wields its bitter chill at the young lovers, Jack and Rose.  It’s hard to believe that I sat through this movie in the theater on four different occasions, and then went home, logged in to an AOL chatroom, and engaged in serious discussion and analysis as JKBosco.

  • I am thankful for

    The leftovers my roommate brings home for me
    Peanut butter toast with Nutella
    Our dishwasher

    Tea towel via swissmiss.