Tag Archive for: cooking

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Welcome to “Five Nights of Sweating” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

A fever that doesn’t seem to want to go away; new music around the house; some terrible food. Maybe we can make the time pass quicker if we go to a grind core festival.

Is not wanted

  • I’ve got a fever that kept coming back

Word

  • What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast is sponsored by Hoppin Hot Sauce— it’s the best sauce in the world! hoppin hot sauce is on amazon so anyone can eat it with hash browns and and English muffin-egg sandwiches with or without cheese but definitely with Hoppin Hot Sauce

Feeling feverish

  • For the first 3 nights it was up around 102-103 F
  • In addition to Tylenol, I started taking Advil as a fever reducer, then I woke up covered in sweat with a normal temperature
  • Then the next day it would began again
  • I had an epiphany to drink Gatorade

Catching up with Sonny

  • Sonny Rollins has got a mohawk, where i’m at in Saxophone Colossus
  • At his shows, he came out with the cowboy hat, then he would take that off and had the mohawk underneath

Burnin’ Up

  • I sweat through the sheets for the 4th night in a row
  • Disgusting: I smelled like a case of unwashed grapefruit with a sour whiff of spoilage or maybe more than that
  • As if someone left me in the back hall, not in the fridge. by the dumpster near some unnamed liquid.
  • I need a clean up

New Music

On the fifth night

  • I sweat through the bed on the fifth night and woke up drenched yet again

Grim

  • In frustration at not being able to cook for myself, I took the reins at dinner
  • I ended up making fried gnocchi with spinach, Garlic, tomato, cream, a can of sardines
  • It could have used acid like lemon juice or vinegar to offset the tinned fish. There was a lot of cream though
  • It was terrible. the kids wouldn’t eat it.
  • I thought to myself, “It is making your nails stronger and increasing your hair’s tensile ability”

Made it through

  • On the sixth night the fever evaporated and I woke up mostly dry

Grind core for the whole family

  • Gilman is hosting the Fast, Wierd and Freaky Festival this weekend
  • It’s all ages
  • I might still be a little too tired plus John John is maybe not ready
  • Maybe he’s not even ready to hear the band lineup read aloud

Dad Butt Dials Me

  • Dad is butt dialing me again
  • We watched John Voight & Jane Fonda in Coming Home

This Week’s Selfie

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After Five Nights Of Sweating
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Welcome to “Multiplex and Talent Show” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

This week, I used my wheelchair to go to the multiplex in Dublin and the talent show in the auditorium at my children’s elementary school. The movie we saw was “Inside” with Willem Dafoe and the elementary school talent show had a few truly bizarre, fun memorable moments.. Using my wheelchair made it possible.

Spicy Nut and Pretzel Mix

  • Whipped up the David Lebovitz snack mix because our dinner guest brought an extra pie. I think you could say it was burnt, but it’s still so addictive that it didn’t matter – it all gets eaten every time

Welcome in

Big Blood

At the Multiplex

  • I went to the Regal Hacienda Crossing Spaceport in Dublin. It is a multiplex at an outdoor mall
  • Shout out to Anjela the hair-cutter who told me she went to movies there when she was in high school
  • I went with Nami to the movie in my wheelchair. I like going to the multiplex in a wheelchair because multiplexes are big and huge and I don’t know if I’d be able to make it otherwise
  • We saw the movie Inside with William Defoe
  • It’s about an art burglar who gets trapped inside a smart house which more-or-less tortures him and features the destruction of millions of dollars worth of of art and furniture.

Kids Got Talent

  • I went to the children’s talent show in my wheelchair, but beforehand i emailed ahead of time to ask if they would save a space for me, which was no problem. they saved a space for me at the front of the room and a really sweet girl wearing a tap outfit helped me to get settled
  • There were great embarrassing song and dance routines, solo Hamilton, martial arts, gymnastic cartwheels I & II, Water Under The Bridge interpretive dances and SO much more. It was more interesting than I thought it would be.
  • My son told me he had a crush on a girl who did a gymnastic routine. When his mom asked why, he said it was because she “ran really fast”
  • “A pint is a pound the world around”
Indie rockers weigh in

Only one thing left

  • subscribe to the whatsthematterwithme podcast and you’ll get a very fancy nice email version of the podcast every time a new episode comes out its very handsome be sure to click subscribe right at the top of the page, just a name and your email is all we need to get goin and then youll always get the selfie

This Week’s Selfie

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In the studio
car accident cover

I got in a car accident where I got rear ended, wasn’t injured and the insurers agreed that I was not at fault. This is a blender episode, with lots of little segments that all go in there.

Blender Episode

This episode contains lots of different segments, all going into the blender like fruit goes into the smoothie.. Stay tuned for lurid stories of rampaging young adults and their dangerous car accidents, but let’s start our blender episode back in the 1990s at Jamba Juice.

Juicy Tale

  • Do you go to Jamba Juice? My first thought was that I went there in the nineties, and that I don’t go there anymore.
  • Kind of like Noah’s Bagels, I feel like Jamba Juice belongs to the 90s the way Orange Julius belongs to the 80s
  • But I go there all the time because like El Pollo Loco, you can trust it, if you don’t trust anything, Jamba juice will feed me I get the peanut butter smoothie
  • Jamba Juice was originally called juice club
  • Began in San luis obispo in 1990
  • It was renamed in 1995.
  • In 1995, founder Kirk Perron swapped out Juice Club for Jamba Juice, which is a play on the African word, jama, which means “to celebrate.”

Music & Culture Festival

  • Like Carijama, the dormant Caribbean music and culture festival in Oakland’s Mosswood Park
  • Ended in violence every year 2001-4 after existing since 86

Making The Scends

  •  I have been using lent as an excuse to go to the fried fish place in San Leandro on 14th street Scends

Crate Digging Expedition

Session In Paris

  • Masahiko Togashi was a jazz drummer who sustained a spinal injury in 1970.
  • After his injury, Togashi had a custom drum set adapted so he could play drums using only his hands
  • At Stacks, I found a copy of 1979s Togashi / Cherry / Haden “Session in Paris – Song of Soil” with a picture of Togashi in his wheelchair on the back, something I haven’t seen very often on a record, so I bought it right away.
  • If you’re looking for a copy, they’re on Bandcamp

Pole Cane Stick

  • Got a new walking stick made of carbon fiber, the old one was aluminum.
  • The weight difference is like picking up a twig vs. blade of grass

Creative Destruction

I was on vacation in Palm Springs, Calif., on Nov. 7, 2021, when I awoke with the cacophony of a dozen dial-up modems blaring inside my head. Confused and alarmed, I called out to a friend staying in the room next door and could hardly hear my own voice. When he responded, I heard almost nothing at all.

The reason for my sudden hearing loss and the persistent ringing in my ears wasn’t immediately obvious, to me or to the emergency room doctor who examined me that morning. I hadn’t stood too close to the speaker at a concert or hit my head in some traumatic accident. I simply had gone to sleep with my hearing intact and, come morning, it was gone.

My life since that day has been difficult to describe, though the words I return to most often are “disorienting” and “humbling.” I spent months shuffling from one medical specialist to the next for a battery of tests and treatments. I eventually started wearing hearing aids and learning American Sign Language. And, perhaps most challenging of all, I confronted a new identity — disabled — that often leaves me feeling vulnerable.

At first, I also felt very alone. No one hands you a guidebook when one of the fundamental senses on which you innately rely is revoked without warning. Even the most attentive physicians are primed to focus on your physical symptoms, not the upheaval that a sudden impairment brings to your personal and professional life, nor the erosion it causes to your sense of self.

Steven Overley, “I had decades to make peace with my sexuality. My disability is a different story.” NY Times Subscriber-only newsletter (EXCERPT)
  • Acquiring a disability feels like forced creative destruction
  • Steven Ozerkey was guest writer for Frank Bruni’s newsletter last week and shared his perspective on acquiring a disability

‘Eyesight Compromised. Could Go Blind’

There is virtue in stoicism, but there is also danger in what strong people can hide. His own situation has made him even more keen to understand the other whose public face contradicts a private suffering. He proposes that each person should have a sandwich board listing her pain and how she adapts: “Imagine that our hardships, our hurdles, our demons, our pain were spelled out for everyone around us to see.” Bruni’s sandwich board would read: “Eyesight compromised, could go blind.”

You ask, why announce your troubles? Doesn’t everyone have something? “Well, yes. Tell us anyway,” I think Bruni would reply. Maybe if we knew, we might slow down, turn and fumble toward each other. Perhaps, then I could say that you’re not alone, and I’m rooting for you, because I am.

Min Jin Lee
  • Reading Min Jin Lee’s review of The Beauty Of Dusk by Frank Bruni, his account of impaired vision after suffering a stroke

AI Still Not Perfect

  • I asked openAI to summarize my podcast, and it said @johnleeclark hosted it, which isn’t true I host it. I appreciated the compartisom, and I’ll keep my eye on Clark, a DeafBlind poet.
Approach
By JOHN LEE CLARK

I spin around in the middle of the corridor. My cane taps against four elevator doors. I have pressed both the up and down buttons because there is a fifth elevator door. If I tried to tap all five I would come to closing doors too late. Let the fifth door open to a ghost. Let it be confused and close again.

Source: Poetry (December 2021)

RIP Judy Heumann

  • RIP Judy Heumann, who passed away on Saturday March 4, 2023 at 75 years old
  • She changed the way we think about disability, or the better. What an inspiration

Chimpanzeeing it

  • Since I got my teeth back I’m having to learn to use them to pull things into my mouth and not my lips. For the moment i’m kinda chimpanzeeing it

Shout outs

  • Shoutouts to Claude Hopper – congratulations on being awarded the Sal 9000 spot, Saturday mornings 6-9AM PST on 89.7FM kfjc.org. To get the ball rolling, I request Tapper Zukie

In the kitchen

  • Made a simplified meatloaf & cheesy polenta

Disabled Japan

  •  In Japan for example, it isn’t said that, “I am hot.” Instead you might say “Heat, there is.” It’s a group culture, which ios different from the West, where we live in an individually-oriented culture. In light of this, I have to reorient myself and figure out for myself.
  • How to exist as a disabled person in Japan? Rather than saying, “I am a disabled person, and they will accommodate me.”

Youth Gone Wild

  • I got rear ended and although it wasn’t my fault (the guy in front showed down, then I showed down, then I got rear ended) by a 20 year old driving his parents BMW which sustained a lot of front end damage
  • The kid jumped out of the car, cursing, yelling. At himself, not me, but it’s freaky when people start doing that, because it feels like they could turn it on you att any moment. But it was cool. I was bigger than him and an adult.
  • I am always afraid when I get in a car accident that somehow it’s going to lead to me having my driver’s license taken away, because I’m disabled.
  • I thought back to the Positive experience I had in the Hayward DMV, And I thought to myself, “I am totally allowed to be here,” and it got me through

Youth Gone Wild Pt. 2

You made it this far

  • Subscribe to the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast and you’ll get a very fancy nice email version of the podcast every time a new episode comes out, it’s very handsome, be sure to click subscribe right at the top of the page, just a name and your email is all we need to get goin and then you’ll always get the selfie

This Week’s Selfie

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Accident Survivor
I Got My Teeth Back cover

Welcome to “I Got My Teeth Back” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

I went to the dentist, and he attached some teeth to the posts the periodontist implanted in my jaw. It’s been almost two years since I had buck teeth in my mouth, and it is a big change. I made a lot of squash soup, adapting the method for one hand, and I’ve included the recipe in this post.

Shout outs

  • Shout outs to Klaudhopper, who asked about Hoppin Hot Sauce stickers
  • Shout outs to Tall John who called me up after I tweeted about not going to Japan

Teeth

teeth

These are the images I gave to the lab that fabricated my new teeth when they asked for pictures of what my old teeth used to look like.

teeth 2

Goes By Cam

  • Scam Likely probably goes by Cam
  • He calls everyone and no one takes his calls, on the answering machine he’s like hey it’s me, Cam- Cam Likely

Brain Lesions & Disease Progression

Slow

  • I had infusion which is a really long slow injection

Roasted Squash Soup

Recipe by John Hoppin

Roasting winter squashes face up concentrates flavor, and using convection during the roast increases tasty browning reactions. Using an immersion blender makes it easier to puree using only one hand. We eat leftovers for lunch with a grilled cheese sandwich and Hoppin Hot Sauce.

Servings
8 Servings

Cooking Time
75 minutes

Ingredients

  • 3lbs winter squash, cut in half, seeds taken out
  • 4T unsalted butter
  • Yellow onion, chopped
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 cup maple syrup
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  • 4 cups stock

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F {or 325 if using convection).
  2. Roast pumpkins until easily pierced with a fork, at least 1 hour. Let cool, then scoop out the flesh.
  3. Melt the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat and once it is foamy, add the onion. Cook 5 minutes until soft.
  4. Stir nutmeg & cinnamon into the onions. When the smell permeates the room, add the stock.
  5. Add squash flesh, bring to a good simmer, stirring.
  6. Remove from heat. Leave to steam for a couple of minutes.
  7. Puree thoroughly with the immersion blender, using a stirring motion. Be extra-thorough to find any chunks of squash or onion that may be hiding under the surface.. It should be thick. I don’t do any extra sieving, so I want to take my time and be sure it is well-pureed.
  8. Add maple syrup, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Sonny At Rikers

  • Sonny Rollins got 1-3 years for having a gun. He was searched without cause. In 1952 he was at Riker’s Island. He arranged hymns for a hip chaplain at the Protestant Mission House, and he was paroled September 11, 1952

Theme Song

  • The theme song candidate for this month is less jazz & more industrial
  • I am considering whether it might have lyrics, maybe it’ll sing the intro part

Tiny Tooth Wrench

When they reattached them, the radio played Lionel Richie’s 80-s smash hit “Hello”. Neither the dentist nor his assistant knew the song. Turned out that the dentist was born in 1987.

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  • The dentist used a little mini Allen wrench to attach them to the bases. there was pressure, it made my eyes water
  • I have teeth now, so I ate Ramen and spaghetti for the first time since my bridge broke and took my front teeth with it in August 2021

My Gumbo History

  • Cousin Emily came over for gumbo on Saturday
  • I made gumbo at the Rockridge Fish in Market Hall in 2003-4

Last night for dinner

  • i made red sauce italian sausage with leeks

This Week’s Selfie

I Got My Teeth Back Selfie
I Got My Teeth Back
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Welcome to “Concert At Yoshi’s” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

I went to see a jazz concert at Yoshi’s in my wheelchair, and it was pretty easy, for a change. I made a lot of vegetarian bean chili ahead of a trip to the ranch, and the vegetarians approved of it.

Shout outs

  •  Shout outs to Claude Hopper who listened to Wheelchair Dining Experience and wrote in to laugh about the banana salad
  • My mom told me that I should have complained about the restaurant experience, but I have worked in restaurants for a long time and I think that things can go wrong very easily, so I declined. Kind of a cop out. I was like it’s not gonna make my experience any better to complain.
  • Write me an email john@hoppinworld.com and I will give you a shout out, perhaps the best shout out you will ever have. What are you waiting for? Send me an email john@hoppinworld.com
  • Mom reminded me how the meal was like a car crash and i couldn’t look away because It was like I was driving and I crashed my car. Maybe I was like a passenger in a taxi where the driver got into a horrible accident and killed someone and was at fault I was not at fault but I experienced it. And I paid for it. Rest in peace to that dinner
  • I’ll complain next time.

Ads R Cheesy

  • It’s still true that I’ve never had an advertisement on WTMWM?, but I was watching TV with my son and they had an advertisement for this nut company and I have to say that I order nuts and raisins a lot. they also sell cheese powder and I’m interested in that. so if the nuts people come calling, I might do it, for the cheese powder

Eight Cans Of Beans

big pot of chili on the stove
Chili
  • I made a gallon and a half of bean chili, to bring to the ranch. it got good reviews from the vegetarians who ate it up. I wanted to see if making vegetarian chili from canned beans was possible, and it worked out.
  • My buddy grilled some carne asada and onions, which mixed into the bean chili just right, lending good meaty flavor and satisfying some more primal urges.

Dave Holland Trio at Yoshi’s

Instruments
Instruments on the stage

Monday February 20, 2023

Dave Holland, bass
Kevin Eubanks, guitar
Eric Garland, drums

  • From jam band to nihilistic noise rock.
  • Eubanks is a natural sideman and laughs at everything
  • This jazz concert at Yoshi’s was accessible in my wheelchair
  • I just had to call in the afternoon to let them know I was coming that night, and they reserved a table for my wife and I
  • They gave us a good table with a clear vantage point and we enjoyed the show. We were not off to the side, or around the corner. It was easy to get to my seat, and I had a clear path to the bathroom which was useful because i had two whiskey sours

Spatula Debates

 spatula

Spatula appears in English for the first time in 1525, when it morphs from being a weapon to a utensil most commonly used at apothecaries. Today, it describes any cooking tool with a long handle and a thin flexible blade.

Source: 8 Common Spatulas and How To Use Them

  • We got into a debate during the making of chili about spatulas: are they for smoothing things out, or flipping them.
  • Turns out, there are a lot of different things that you could call a spatula

Domestic Things

  • We received the bed and the fridge
  • The mattress is not a lumpy nightmare
  • The fridge is keeping things cold, but well short of freezing

I Drove Them

  • I drove the kids to presidents week camp this morning bc my wife was in the office
wheelchair dining experience cover
I went out for a wheelchair dining experience and it was a comedy/tragedy of errors

Welcome to “Wheelchair Dining Experience” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

In this episode, I rolled out to eat with my wife for a wheelchair dining experience  and it was a comedy/tragedy of errors. It was supposed to be a fine dining restaurant but the experience fell short in a lot of ways. I’m so starved to get out that it didn’t stop me from having a good time, but I don’t think I will be back.

Press

Mention from the MS Foundation
  • The multiple sclerosis foundation tweeted about what’s the matter with me Podcast- they are a loud voice in the community, and I feel very seen.

Shout-Outs

  •  Not Quite Twice My Age: Dad is celebrating his 75th birthday cruising the Bahamas
  • Swing By: Chris Parachini is in Puerto Rico but he’ll make it to CA someday.

Tag > Slap

Date Looms Large

  • Does the date of MS diagnosis loom large? For me, the answer is probably a no, even though I haven’t forgotten it. I just haven’t given it much weight.

Unprecedented and Unique Dinner

  • Dinner experience in my wheelchair, it was a singular experience
  • When companies/products/marketers have come to me asking to advertise on WTMWM? I have refused.

Big Question I’m Always Asking

  • How can fatigue and achievement coexist?

Lent

  • Friday fish from Scends: snapper, shrimp, fries, mac n cheese, coleslaw, corn bread hot sauce. The kids liked it.

Sam Kinison Auto Parts Jingle

  • I made the Sam Kinison auto parts jingle

Bad Old Ideas

Pizza Problem

  • Bluebird Pizzeria in San Leandro is the only bona fide pizza in town, but they’re closed on Monday And they Sell out on Friday and Saturday nights, so you can’t even get a take away order placed at 7 o’clock. Its a little place& lotsTogo- no delivery. Guess I’m just ranting about there Isn’t enough pizza in mytown

Just Chili-ing

  • Im making vegetarian bean chili

This Week’s Selfie

Chin Music
gum scrape cover
Body Horror, Part Two

Welcome to “Gum Scrape” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

In “Gum Scrape,” I’m finally on the verge of completing my dental implants. I went to the dentist and he got after me with an X-acto knife.

Tube-Tying

  • I cut the cord in 2012 And now I have cable in 2023 and I don’t ever want to be without live sports. Probably I don’t really feel that way but my son does and my wife certainly disagrees
  • rafa lost to mackenzie mcdonald
  • rafa had rf procedure on his foot for nerve pain
  • mcdonald trained at the Claremont Resort & Spa
  • I used to sneak into the Claremont to employee dining room
  • Sharks came back from a 3 Goal deficit for the 1st time since 2009

Periodontist is a 17th century job

  • Dentist used x acto knife on my gums

Easy Soup

  • Cooking while disabled- easy white beans, kale and sausage soup, kinda like this one, but with sausage.
  • Smoky from Goulart’s choriço

Take the deadly nightshade

  • Modern love is a romantic comedy and my wife doesn’t think it’s funny
  • My wife says opt for the deadly nightshade

One-handed piano player

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Disabled Owned & Operated

Welcome to “Disabled Business Owner” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

In this episode, I’m going through the books and wrapping up 2022 for my business when I discover that I’ve totally spaced and forgot to bill for the biggest order of the year. It happened last year, right around when I was about to go into surgery.

Shout Outs

  • Shout outs to KFJC’s Klaud hopper who was on the air on kfjc filling in for lucky j Sunday morning 6-9

Kid’s Game

On The Flipside

  • I got a fully automatic turntable: AT-LP-3

Big Tunes

Wierdo Stuff

Handling Business

  • During acute periods it is hard to manage things. Case in point: I forgot to invoice my customer for the biggest purchase of Hoppin Hot Sauce this year.

Hey Dear

  • What’s up with Spam that begins, Hey dear
  • The scam of the 1890s. Is a Hoppin Hot Sauce Association
  • If you can’t steal from your friends

Cooking While Disabled

  • I made pulled pork with mojo &chiles
  • last night we had meatloaf, and that was not an easy recipe
NEW YEAR’S MIRACLE: A rotisserie chicken

Welcome to “Cooking While Disabled 2023” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

In this episode, I find myself doing a lot of cooking while disabled which involves adaptation and interpretation of recipes that generally aren’t written with disabled people in mind. We’ve got to eat, regardless.

There’s an influx of produce at the house because we sized up our weekly vegetable box in the new year.

The kids are home from school which compresses the day, as they come home from camp in the afternoon and from then on it can be pretty difficult to concentrate.

Shout Outs

  • Shout outs to Eric & Traci
  • Shout outs to the people listening through to the past episodes- I know they are there when the number of episodes streamed increases appreciably while the number of individual listeners doesn’t increase

Art of jokes

  • Gary Cannone, Jeff Dunham & modernism
  • Usually art jokes are not funny, but Gary’s are pretty good
  • Don’t sleep on the Gary Cannone Interview Special from Season Six.

Bouncing Off The Walls

  • The kids are back in school- it was very hard to concentrate with them around, it compresses everything
  • I made chili
  • thought about how cooking while disabled is all about Adapting the recipe to your ability
  • Adaptations that make the recipe easier to execute while maintaining the spirit and making high quality food

The Iron Curtain Has Fallen

  • I went to the dentist and had my teeth cleaned by a cat

Shop ’til U Drop

What We’re Watching

With supply chain shortages, prices skyrocketing and more shoplifting than ever before, positive customer relations are nearly impossible. 

aetv.com/shows/customer-wars

Port Protection is home to the few who have left behind normal society and chosen a different life in a remote Alaskan community, where survival of the individuals and community cannot sustain without the other. The stakes are high. The land is rugged and unforgiving and the seas which surround Port Protection are cold and merciless.

imdb.com

Keeping Up With The Joneses

  • We’re waitlisted for basketball

Welcome to “New Year’s Epiphanies,” Episode 1 of What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast Season Seven

This episode marks the transition to a new year, new theme song, and hopefully some new ways of thinking.

  • The Season Seven theme song is “Beast”
  • Listeners grew 144% from 2021 to 2022
  • I advised my son not to brag on his presents and I think he heard me
  • Weird Al = Weird AI? Maybe Weird Al should play Superman
  • I made pot roast and ate it the same day, Christmas eve. burnt some cookies
  • Christmas wars
  • New sleep apnea iron lung equipment- need to order new braces bc the ol;d ones are falling apart
  • New Year’s Epiphanies: there isn’t enough wine in a bottle of wine – shut up sound effect
  • Getting tagged in my family holiday photos. I’m not a straightforward photography subject and it gets worse when things are candid
  • In a severe mental crisis situation, I’m very charming
  • If we’re remembered at all we’ll be remembered solely in the context of the turn of the millennium
  • I’m a product of y2k
  • Dad butt-dials me
  • Last night for dinner we had tuna pasta

This Week’s Selfie