The synesthesia diet

Synesthesia is a fascinating condition that causes patients to have strange reactions, like they may be able to taste words, hear shapes, or taste a certain color when they see it. I tried saying several words out loud to see if I had this condition, but the only time I even remotely had a reaction was when I said the word, “pickle.” My mouth watered. I don’t think that’s the same thing. It occurred to me, though, that if we could bottle this condition, it would be the best diet ever. For example, let’s say every time I saw the color red, I tasted chocolate cake. Voila. No need to actually eat the cake because I’ve already tasted it! Or if I heard a warning bell sound every time a cute guy with a guitar showed up, then I’d have an extra warning to stay far, far away! (Ok, just kidding about this one.) But seriously, if I could just look at something and satisfy my cravings for pizza, chips and queso, hamburgers, Mexican food and chocolate, I’d have no problem losing weight. I’m gonna try to close my eyes and focus really hard next time I want to eat something bad for me (which should be anytime now) and try to taste it. I may be on to something here!

Poker Face

Don't you hate it when you find yourself singing along to a pop song you once hated? Ugh. That's exactly what's happened to me with Lady GaGa's "Poker Face." The first time I heard it, it woke me up on my alarm clock and I literally shot out of bed and was like, "What the heck is that?" Since then, it's grown on me. Turns out, critics love it and many artists have already covered it. Today I found this orchestral, instrumental version of the song...it's actually really beautiful.



I also really love this version where Queen Latifah adds her own flair:


However, I know the song can be annoying in it's usual, radio version. My sister summed it up best once when she said, "It makes me wanna POKE HER FACE!" :)

They gave us all they had to give

I've fallen down on my blogging job lately, but today we lost two icons of American culture -- Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson -- so I feel I had to write something. Tonight I found a copy of a column I wrote for my college paper in 1993 about Michael Jackson. It was before the child molestation charges, before many of the plastic surgeries. It's not great writing, but I still feel the same way. Michael Jackson was a musical genius who probably had a tortured soul after a lifetime in a cruel biz. There won't be another Michael Jackson. And there won't be another Farrah Fawcett, either. RIP, Farrah and Michael. You will be missed. Fellow musician, Lenny Kravitz, said it best with a lovely tribute to Michael Jackson tonight on Twitter.

Walk of Fame

My future husband, John Cusack, will soon have his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce announced their 2010 honorees yesterday. John will be joined by a few other of my favorites like Adam Sandler, Bryan Adams, ZZ Top and Van Morrison. So prooud of ya, John! ;)

Paper finds pilot's secret past

Today, the Austin American-Statesman ran a second article about an 81-year old female pilot who they had featured in story last week. After the feature story ran, they were tipped off that the woman had once been convicted of murdering her six year-old son! Here’s the paper’s editorial about why they do background checks and why this information didn't show up originally. Like the woman says, everyone has skeletons in their closet, but I have to say that killing a child is not something I find easy to forgive. There are some mistakes that don’t ever need to come out of the closet, but murder isn’t one of them.

Articles about the pilot:
Flying high at 81

Pilot has skeletons in closet

Testing out how to blog from my Blackberry.

The son of Evil Knievel Jumps in front of Capitol!

Last night in Austin, Evil Knievel's son Robbie jumped over two 18-Wheeler trucks in front of the Capitol. The stunt kicked off the annual Republic of Texas (ROT) Rally. Our fair city is literally covered with thousands of motorcycle riders this weekend. We were talking at work yesterday about how out of all the groups of people who visit Austin for events, the ROT Rally people are the nicest. They may be draped in leather and covered in tattoos and you can hear the roar of their motorcycles for miles away, but they love being here for the ROT Rally and for the most part are respectful to the locals...nevermind that they spend thousands of dollars here. (That helps boost tax revenues, which ultimately pays my salary!) The guests for ACL and SXSW have become downright snotty and entitled. Locals don't really get to enjoy either of these festivals anymore. Anyway, I wish I could have seen Robbie's jump last night. What a cool way to kick off the weekend. I'll be travelling to Houston and attemping to blog from the road. We'll see how that goes. :)

Shades of Gray

Today a good friend sent me an email trying to explain her political beliefs, which apparently lean to the extreme right. I’ve always tried to be open-minded and have never fallen to the extreme left or the extreme right of any issue. While I do fall more to the left than the right, to me, there are always circumstances to consider and I have a really hard time saying something is either black or white. Even things I am really passionate about are never black or white.

To quote the 1986 C. Thomas Howell movie Soul Man and the song Shades of Gray, “Today there is no black or white, only shades of gray.” That’s pretty much how I see the world and the issues we all face – in shades of gray. I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around radical thoughts one way or the other. And frankly, radicals and conspiracy theorists scare me. A lot. For example, how can killing a man in a church because he is an abortion doctor be the right thing to do? If you oppose abortion and think that it is murder, how can murdering someone to prove your point be right? I don't get it.

Don’t get me wrong – I am all for questioning the status quo and ensuring that our leaders are on the best path for all of us. And sometimes I wish I could see things in black and white; it would make things easier. The Billy Joel lyrics below sum up how I feel:
“Shades of grey wherever I go
The more I find out the less that I know
Black and white is how it should be
But shades of grey are the colors I see.”

Where else would you find burnt orange loaves of bread?

I've been on a dream kick lately and I never posted this one in my blog, so I thought I'd share. Apparently I typed it up when I woke up that morning; I just found it in my files.

Dream 5/17/09
Appearing: me, my sister and my brother + my dad our step mom.
Details: We all went to “UT buffet” on the UT campus to eat dinner, but it was almost 9pm.
The manager made an exception and sent us through the line. We all got drinks and free burnt orange loaves of bread. (Ha!)

The buffet was in this giant building created in a circle and you had to walk all the way around, passing other UT depts. along the way. We passed the Radio, TV & Film dept. as we walked around the buffet line. They were filming a news cast and I think we all waved hello as we passed them. By the time we got to the actual food buffet, they were closed with their lights off. We were all livid because the manager told us we could go through the line.

That’s all I remember, but there was more to the dream.

Weird dream, as usual.

Oliver Twist

I've really been dreaming a lot lately. Odd, vivid dreams. Saturday night I dreamt that I was trapped on some big compound, living with a cult. Scary. Last night I dreamt that I bought a big, white, shaggy dog from a man off Craig's List. I named him Oliver Twist or Ollie. Not the kind of dog I would normally go for, but in the dream, he was super sweet and kind of looked like this: