Every year on December 29, I make cupcakes with homemade pink buttercream frosting. Here are this year's.

---

Come up screaming
Come up screaming

I've never seen you look like this without a reason
Another promise fallen through, another season passes by you
I never took the smile away from anybody's face
And that's a desperate way to look for someone who is still a child
In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive

I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with every single hope you had shattered

I'm not expecting to grow flowers in a desert
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime
In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive
In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive

So take that look out of here, it doesn't fit you
Because it's happened doesn't mean you've been discarded
Pull up your head off the floor, come up screaming
Cry out for everything you ever might've wanted
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with every single hope you had shattered

I'm not expecting to grow flowers in a desert
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime
In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive

In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive
In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive

- Big Country
"In a Big Country"
The Crossing (1982)

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This year, I think Utena's met someone whose life's lessons parallel her own story's resonance with that song's bridge. I look forward to exploring that connection in the next.

Also, did anyone notice today's holiday banner redeco? I thought of it before the day after the holiday it's for, for once in my life. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>Also, did anyone notice today's holiday banner redeco? I thought of
>it before the day after the holiday it's for, for once in my
>life. :)

I did! And then it made me realize wtf you were talking about on twitter re: cupcakes.

I'm occasionally not very bright.

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."

Those look pretty tasty...

Went to a friend's party on Friday night that was, quote, "Manly themed!" which seemed for the most part to revolve around flannel and beards.

My contribution to the festivities was a dozen or so meat cupcakes--line a muffin tin with bacon, add meatloaf, bake; create mashed potatoes (the old fashioned way); frost item A with item B and then finish 'em under a broiler when at the venue.

They came out marvelously, though the one problem was that after people ate them, they were too full for eating the other goodies for a while.

I'll have to see if I can dig up any pictures.