It started when Trench informed me that we have met Taylor Swift. I have no recollection of this whatsoever. It's true that in 2007 Trench and I went on vacation to Toronto with a friend of ours who went to the Taylor Swift show and interviewed her. We didn't go with. We dropped him and the car off in the parking lot of the auditorium, then walked downtown until we found a restaurant, and Interviewer Friend met us up after the show. Trench has a mind like a steel trap, though, so for awhile I was like, "Wow, I met Taylor Swift and don't remember it at all." (I'm fairly certain that's the impression Taylor Swift would have on me.) Finally I asked Interviewer Friend if he introduced us to Taylor Swift and he replied that he introduced us to her music, but not to her. Trench was adamant that when we dropped Interviewer Friend off, there was a van and a blonde girl was in it and we chatted with her for a bit. I'm just as adamant that this never happened. Interviewer Friend backs me up. Trench laughed and recalled a story on NPR about a husband telling the story about Jackie Onassis Kennedy waving to his wife on a street in New York, and his wife waves back till she realizes that Jackie O is just hailing a cab. The husband remembers everything about this story in great detail, but the wife insists that he wasn't even there, she was by herself.
I thought this was just a one time thing, but then it happened again. Trench started telling a story about the time we went to see Dancer In the Dark and how depressing it was, and after it was over we ran into a friend of ours who had taken a bunch of shrooms before the movie because he thought it was going to be a happy musical starring Bjork.
"Wait!" I stopped him. "That didn't happen to us. That happened to our friend, Mouse."
"No," Trench insisted. "I remember it. He was wearing those giant raver pants and a shiny shirt." (This was '00 people, ravers wore that stuff.)
"That's not our story!" I insisted right back, and texted Mouse, who replied that that indeed happened to her, and that she was with her ex-boyfriend. This has not convinced Trench otherwise. He still thinks we met Taylor Swift too.
Last week we were in New Orleans and we started telling a story to our traveling companions about something that happened to us our first trip there, ten years ago. It was our very first vacation together and one night we decided to go get tarot card readings. I went to this famous tea house first, and the reading was meh. Trench went to an occult bookstore, and he liked his reading, but it was mostly him and the tarot card guy talking about Alastair Crowley, so I don't think it was a reading so much as two geeks talking. Then there was this 19 year old indie kid who was standing outside some touristy store on Bourbon Street who told us he'd do a reading. And this was the real deal. He read our cards and our palms, getting detailed enough to say things like, "Okay, I can see that you have lower back problems, so make sure you're doing yoga." However, the best part was after he finished reading Trench's cards, I shuffled the deck and he laid out the cards for my reading, did a double take and said, "Whoa, dude, you have to look at this! It's the exact same cards except in different places!" It was a defining moment in our young relationship, where we knew, "Yep, this is it."
Until Trench mentioned that the kid had long blonde hair. I clearly remember him as having short, messy dark hair.
I tried so hard to brush it aside...it's just hair color, we both remember everything else the same way. But WTF! Blonde hair? Trench even described him as "elfin." So Legolas did our card readings? I remember him as Orlando Bloom without the wig. Am I the crazy one? Maybe I really have met Taylor Swift and saw a shrooming friend after Dancer In the Dark and had my tarot cards read by Legolas? Even scarier...have we officially become that couple who bickers over the small details of stories that happened years ago? I'm afraid the answer is yes. In the end, does it really matter if one of us or both of us waved to Jackie O as long as the story ends the same? Probably not.
But that tarot kid totally had dark hair.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
a post about what I made for dinner turns into a rant about vegetarianism
I just made a pretty damn good dinner if I do say so myself. There are so many times where I go to look up a recipe on the web and then get sucked in looking at pictures of delicious things to eat until my blood sugar sinks so low that I'm ready to eat hummus with my fingers and call it a night. I really can cook a good meal, I swear I can! And I've successfully followed recipes from smitten kitchen, fatfree vegan (um...I usually add a handful of cheese to these recipes. Shh! Don't tell!), and 101 cookbooks. Trench is definitely the chef of the family and I've been bugging him for about three years to start a cooking blog, but like a true philosopher, he hasn't gotten past pontificating about the blog in order to start one.
Usually when I get home from work, I just can't handle making a full on meal, and so I rely on a one-pot recipe instead. For a long time, this meant pasta. Farfalle with olive oil, diced cherry tomatoes and feta cheese, or fusilli with butter sauce and shrimp. All delicious, but probably not the most nutritious on a nightly basis. Finally I've discovered that 1 Grain + chopped up veggies + 1 protein = healthy, delicious and quick to make dinner. Tonight it was quinoa with chopped up swiss chard, pre-cooked and marinated tofu (thank you Trader Joe!), can of diced tomatoes, and a can of chickpeas. Really good, and just one dish was more than filling.
I don't think I've written about it before, but I'm a vegequarian, meaning I eat mostly vegetarian with an exception for fish. Yes, I know the technical term is "pescatarian", but I like "vegequarian" better. Giving up meat was a very gradual process for me. We didn't eat very much of it to begin with because meat is annoying to cook, with the thawing and meat juice that gets everywhere. My mom once gave me a George Foreman grill because she was worried we'd become anemic, and we mostly used it to make grilled cheese sandwiches. About six years ago I was feeling slightly ill from Thanksgiving turkey and realized I was feeling that way whenever I ate lunch meat, so I decided to take a break from eating meat. I didn't miss it, so I never went back to it.
I'm starting to feel guilty about the fish. The more I read about the modern methods of fishing, the less I want to support that industry. I don't want to give up fish though. Yes, I could finally take that step and become vegan, but there's such a rabbit hole when it comes to healthy eating. A 100% meat-free vegetarian might look down on my diet, but a vegan would snub them. (The authors of How It All Vegan refers to them as "lazy vegetarians".) The vegan might feel pretty good about him/herself until a raw foodist comes along and points out all the enzymes they're destroying by cooking perfectly healthy vegetables. Then a fruitarian who lives off fruit that falls from the tree might snap that vegetables don't want to be eaten and it's just as much murder as eating a lamb. (I'm imagining fruitarians as being very snappish and pissed off all the time because they're so hungry, but I'm sure if you asked them they would talk about how much energy they have during the day and how much sleep they get at night and that really the human body doesn't need much more than an apple and a handful of grapes to be healthy.)
Honestly, I have absolutely no problem with people eating meat, I just don't like the idea of supporting factory farms, I think they're a holocaust for animals. I'm jealous of people who live on the west coast because it's so easy to support local farms. Or perhaps you could do it the way a couple friends of mine did and buy your own farm where you raise and slaughter your own meat, knowing that the animal had a good life and was killed as humanely as possible by your own hands. As for me, I'm considering sticking with fish that's local. I live in Illinois. This probably means eating a lot of cod. However, next week I'll be visiting New Orleans. Bring on the crawfish!
Usually when I get home from work, I just can't handle making a full on meal, and so I rely on a one-pot recipe instead. For a long time, this meant pasta. Farfalle with olive oil, diced cherry tomatoes and feta cheese, or fusilli with butter sauce and shrimp. All delicious, but probably not the most nutritious on a nightly basis. Finally I've discovered that 1 Grain + chopped up veggies + 1 protein = healthy, delicious and quick to make dinner. Tonight it was quinoa with chopped up swiss chard, pre-cooked and marinated tofu (thank you Trader Joe!), can of diced tomatoes, and a can of chickpeas. Really good, and just one dish was more than filling.
I don't think I've written about it before, but I'm a vegequarian, meaning I eat mostly vegetarian with an exception for fish. Yes, I know the technical term is "pescatarian", but I like "vegequarian" better. Giving up meat was a very gradual process for me. We didn't eat very much of it to begin with because meat is annoying to cook, with the thawing and meat juice that gets everywhere. My mom once gave me a George Foreman grill because she was worried we'd become anemic, and we mostly used it to make grilled cheese sandwiches. About six years ago I was feeling slightly ill from Thanksgiving turkey and realized I was feeling that way whenever I ate lunch meat, so I decided to take a break from eating meat. I didn't miss it, so I never went back to it.
I'm starting to feel guilty about the fish. The more I read about the modern methods of fishing, the less I want to support that industry. I don't want to give up fish though. Yes, I could finally take that step and become vegan, but there's such a rabbit hole when it comes to healthy eating. A 100% meat-free vegetarian might look down on my diet, but a vegan would snub them. (The authors of How It All Vegan refers to them as "lazy vegetarians".) The vegan might feel pretty good about him/herself until a raw foodist comes along and points out all the enzymes they're destroying by cooking perfectly healthy vegetables. Then a fruitarian who lives off fruit that falls from the tree might snap that vegetables don't want to be eaten and it's just as much murder as eating a lamb. (I'm imagining fruitarians as being very snappish and pissed off all the time because they're so hungry, but I'm sure if you asked them they would talk about how much energy they have during the day and how much sleep they get at night and that really the human body doesn't need much more than an apple and a handful of grapes to be healthy.)
Honestly, I have absolutely no problem with people eating meat, I just don't like the idea of supporting factory farms, I think they're a holocaust for animals. I'm jealous of people who live on the west coast because it's so easy to support local farms. Or perhaps you could do it the way a couple friends of mine did and buy your own farm where you raise and slaughter your own meat, knowing that the animal had a good life and was killed as humanely as possible by your own hands. As for me, I'm considering sticking with fish that's local. I live in Illinois. This probably means eating a lot of cod. However, next week I'll be visiting New Orleans. Bring on the crawfish!
Sunday, November 28, 2010
nanoblome
Well, it's official. November beat me. After my last post a lot of stuff started happening. I got my acceptance letter to grad school, which led to signing up for classes, meetings with financial aid, a whole week of not being certain if I'd have a job in January (I do! Happy endings all around!). There just wasn't any more time for writing about "What's your favorite birthday?"
The whole point of the project was to get me updating this thing again, so it worked in that regard. Now that I've started again, I really want to keep at it, especially once I start school so that I have an outlet for something fun to write besides research papers. I'd like to do more food blogging, about the recipes Trench and I make at home. Maybe some crafty stuff about what I'm currently knitting and how it's going. More reviews of what I'm reading or watching. I've been playing with the idea of posting videos to the horrible pop songs that I hear at work every day and doing a full on rant about them.
Speaking of which, we've just switched to holiday music at work. So far I'm okay with it because it's giving me a break from Justin Bieber and Beyonce. I like the old Bing Crosby and Andrews Sisters carols, and we also have a rock CD where I can hear the Ramones "Merry Xmas, I Don't Want To Fight Tonight". I'll take any Ramones song I can, even if it's a xmas carol. The carols I hate the most are the R&B ones with Luther Vandross or whoever showing off how long they can hold a note for. Yes, your range is astounding, please shut up now.
And now, off to work I go!
The whole point of the project was to get me updating this thing again, so it worked in that regard. Now that I've started again, I really want to keep at it, especially once I start school so that I have an outlet for something fun to write besides research papers. I'd like to do more food blogging, about the recipes Trench and I make at home. Maybe some crafty stuff about what I'm currently knitting and how it's going. More reviews of what I'm reading or watching. I've been playing with the idea of posting videos to the horrible pop songs that I hear at work every day and doing a full on rant about them.
Speaking of which, we've just switched to holiday music at work. So far I'm okay with it because it's giving me a break from Justin Bieber and Beyonce. I like the old Bing Crosby and Andrews Sisters carols, and we also have a rock CD where I can hear the Ramones "Merry Xmas, I Don't Want To Fight Tonight". I'll take any Ramones song I can, even if it's a xmas carol. The carols I hate the most are the R&B ones with Luther Vandross or whoever showing off how long they can hold a note for. Yes, your range is astounding, please shut up now.
And now, off to work I go!
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
What You Love About Yourself/Your First Kiss
The posts are doubling up more often. I'm shocked I'm still doing this. You won't beat me, November!
What You Love About Yourself: I don't consider myself an insecure person, but it's still hard to think of something. Maybe I'll just go with that...I'm not an insecure person. I'm aware that I'm pretty damn cute, and I enjoy it. I know how to take a compliment. I've known lots of girls who are so insecure that all they do is protest when their boyfriends say that they're pretty. I think that's terribly sad. It's strange that I'm not like that, because I was picked on a lot when I was a kid and thought I was the most worthless thing to ever walk on the earth. When I got older I was able to shrug a lot of that off, thank god. I also learned from my friends' insecurities (my friends from when I was young that is...the friends I have now are aware of how spectacular they are) and knew I didn't want to act that way. If my boyfriend told me that I was pretty, I was going to say "thank you", not start running off a list of all the things that were ugly about me. I wasn't going to constantly harp on stuff I didn't like about myself in order to fish for a compliment that I was just going to brush off. I wasn't going to play the "I'm so fat!" game with my friends (you know the game...where one girl laments how fat she is and everyone else says, "No you're not! I'm the fat one!" and so on). I also wasn't going to run in the other direction and fret constantly about my looks, contemplate Botox at 24, and get into bad relationships just to validate myself. I like dressing up and wearing makeup and looking pretty...but I know that under it all I'm still a geek girl who is likely to trip over her cute shoes multiple times and would sometimes rather stay in watching Firefly dvds. Honestly, I think that everyone is beautiful, and that if you are a beautiful person then you will stay beautiful as you age. Enjoy it in whatever way you want to.
My First Kiss: I tried to do the date-any-loser-just-because-he-asks thing, and it didn't work out. I was an insecure wreck in high school because I was the strange girl who liked to read. Unfortunately, I preferred reading whatever I wanted rather than doing my homework, so instead of being in honors classes with my friends, I was with the "normal" kids who thought I was weird and commented on my weirdness daily. (Um...I'm still the weird girl sometimes, in certain company. At least now I can deal with it better.) I met my first kiss in summer school. He asked me on a date, we went out and talked on the phone a lot. I wanted to like him, because he liked me and no one had ever liked me before, but I just couldn't do it. I remember what I didn't like about him was that he was so serious all the time. I think he was probably trying to show off how "deep" he was, but he didn't make me laugh, and that's the main thing I look for in a guy. Luckily he was in military school so he went away soon. He sent me a sappy letter about how he was in love with me. Remember a few posts ago when I said I don't believe people can be in love after knowing each other a few weeks, that love is something that takes time to build? I felt that way back then, even if I didn't realize it. I sent him a letter "breaking up" with him, although according to me we were never really together. I considered the few kisses we had to be "practice" for when the real thing happened. Poor guy.
What You Love About Yourself: I don't consider myself an insecure person, but it's still hard to think of something. Maybe I'll just go with that...I'm not an insecure person. I'm aware that I'm pretty damn cute, and I enjoy it. I know how to take a compliment. I've known lots of girls who are so insecure that all they do is protest when their boyfriends say that they're pretty. I think that's terribly sad. It's strange that I'm not like that, because I was picked on a lot when I was a kid and thought I was the most worthless thing to ever walk on the earth. When I got older I was able to shrug a lot of that off, thank god. I also learned from my friends' insecurities (my friends from when I was young that is...the friends I have now are aware of how spectacular they are) and knew I didn't want to act that way. If my boyfriend told me that I was pretty, I was going to say "thank you", not start running off a list of all the things that were ugly about me. I wasn't going to constantly harp on stuff I didn't like about myself in order to fish for a compliment that I was just going to brush off. I wasn't going to play the "I'm so fat!" game with my friends (you know the game...where one girl laments how fat she is and everyone else says, "No you're not! I'm the fat one!" and so on). I also wasn't going to run in the other direction and fret constantly about my looks, contemplate Botox at 24, and get into bad relationships just to validate myself. I like dressing up and wearing makeup and looking pretty...but I know that under it all I'm still a geek girl who is likely to trip over her cute shoes multiple times and would sometimes rather stay in watching Firefly dvds. Honestly, I think that everyone is beautiful, and that if you are a beautiful person then you will stay beautiful as you age. Enjoy it in whatever way you want to.
My First Kiss: I tried to do the date-any-loser-just-because-he-asks thing, and it didn't work out. I was an insecure wreck in high school because I was the strange girl who liked to read. Unfortunately, I preferred reading whatever I wanted rather than doing my homework, so instead of being in honors classes with my friends, I was with the "normal" kids who thought I was weird and commented on my weirdness daily. (Um...I'm still the weird girl sometimes, in certain company. At least now I can deal with it better.) I met my first kiss in summer school. He asked me on a date, we went out and talked on the phone a lot. I wanted to like him, because he liked me and no one had ever liked me before, but I just couldn't do it. I remember what I didn't like about him was that he was so serious all the time. I think he was probably trying to show off how "deep" he was, but he didn't make me laugh, and that's the main thing I look for in a guy. Luckily he was in military school so he went away soon. He sent me a sappy letter about how he was in love with me. Remember a few posts ago when I said I don't believe people can be in love after knowing each other a few weeks, that love is something that takes time to build? I felt that way back then, even if I didn't realize it. I sent him a letter "breaking up" with him, although according to me we were never really together. I considered the few kisses we had to be "practice" for when the real thing happened. Poor guy.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Your Mode of Transportation/Where You Live
Another double post. Can you tell we're in mid-November? But I'm still at it.
Mode of Transport: These days it's the train. A few years back Trench and I had a car basically catch fire on the highway and that was the end of us being a two car family.
Trench usually has the car because he has to drive out to the burbs for work. I miss having a car, but I think I would still take the train to work because it's in a very trendy, boutiquey neighborhood and parking is difficult. At my old job downtown I happily shelled out money to pay for parking in the garage. Sometimes with me, it's less about the money than it is about time. If it takes twenty minutes to drive somewhere, and 45 minutes on the train, I'd rather drive even if I have to pay for parking. With my current job, all the time gets eaten up with looking for parking, so I'd rather take the train and read a book instead of freaking out over parking and traffic and construction. I do take the car sometimes when I work on Sundays because parking is a lot easier and the trains run slower. The feeling of leaving work and just walking straight to my car instead of waiting 15 minutes for a train? Glorious.
Where You Live: Trench and I recently bought a condo in the most northern neighborhood in Chicago. I didn't mean to move this far north, but the further you get from the trendy neighborhoods, the more affordable the housing is. We definitely lucked out. Trench and I spent almost ten years in the same apartment, mostly because our landlord let us do whatever we wanted and never raised our rent. It was a great apartment and I miss it, but our new place is so much more updated. Central air/heat! Windows that aren't drafty! Multiple electrical outlets everywhere you look! Trench and I both take decorating very seriously so we quickly dove in with paint and artwork to make it our own.
The neighborhood isn't bad. We were worried because it has a reputation for crime, but our place is off the main strip, so it has a very quiet and residential feel to it. We're across the street from a park and just a few blocks away from a beach. Right by the train station there's some evidence of gentrification...a coffeehouse/bagel sandwich place. A massage therapy business. An Italian restaurant. A wine store (our favorite). So we might be a little far out, but I'm slowly falling for my tiny corner of the city.
Mode of Transport: These days it's the train. A few years back Trench and I had a car basically catch fire on the highway and that was the end of us being a two car family.
Trench usually has the car because he has to drive out to the burbs for work. I miss having a car, but I think I would still take the train to work because it's in a very trendy, boutiquey neighborhood and parking is difficult. At my old job downtown I happily shelled out money to pay for parking in the garage. Sometimes with me, it's less about the money than it is about time. If it takes twenty minutes to drive somewhere, and 45 minutes on the train, I'd rather drive even if I have to pay for parking. With my current job, all the time gets eaten up with looking for parking, so I'd rather take the train and read a book instead of freaking out over parking and traffic and construction. I do take the car sometimes when I work on Sundays because parking is a lot easier and the trains run slower. The feeling of leaving work and just walking straight to my car instead of waiting 15 minutes for a train? Glorious.
Where You Live: Trench and I recently bought a condo in the most northern neighborhood in Chicago. I didn't mean to move this far north, but the further you get from the trendy neighborhoods, the more affordable the housing is. We definitely lucked out. Trench and I spent almost ten years in the same apartment, mostly because our landlord let us do whatever we wanted and never raised our rent. It was a great apartment and I miss it, but our new place is so much more updated. Central air/heat! Windows that aren't drafty! Multiple electrical outlets everywhere you look! Trench and I both take decorating very seriously so we quickly dove in with paint and artwork to make it our own.
The neighborhood isn't bad. We were worried because it has a reputation for crime, but our place is off the main strip, so it has a very quiet and residential feel to it. We're across the street from a park and just a few blocks away from a beach. Right by the train station there's some evidence of gentrification...a coffeehouse/bagel sandwich place. A massage therapy business. An Italian restaurant. A wine store (our favorite). So we might be a little far out, but I'm slowly falling for my tiny corner of the city.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Your Siblings/What's In Your Bag
I missed my post for yesterday, which was "Your Siblings", but that one is easy. I'm an only child. Done and done.
So now on to "What's In Your Bag". Hmm...let's see...
- A lot of spare change that should be put into the spare change jar we have.
- My cute little going out wristlet-purse. This should be taken out too so I know where it is when I need it.
- Benefit Dr. Feelgood.
- Double pointed needles for a knitting project I was working on. Yet another item that can get out of my bag.
- Vintage glasses case.
- Various receipts.
- Sharpie pen (not a marker, the pen).
- Pilot pen.
- Two packets of Emergen-C.
- Burt's Bees lip balm.
- Three lip glosses.
- Seven lipsticks. (What? I like lipstick.)
- Purse-hanger (the kind you can use to hang your purse on the table at a bar).
- Spare keys.
- Sample of a solid conditioner from Lush (ooh! Forgot about that!).
So now on to "What's In Your Bag". Hmm...let's see...
- A lot of spare change that should be put into the spare change jar we have.
- My cute little going out wristlet-purse. This should be taken out too so I know where it is when I need it.
- Benefit Dr. Feelgood.
- Double pointed needles for a knitting project I was working on. Yet another item that can get out of my bag.
- Vintage glasses case.
- Various receipts.
- Sharpie pen (not a marker, the pen).
- Pilot pen.
- Two packets of Emergen-C.
- Burt's Bees lip balm.
- Three lip glosses.
- Seven lipsticks. (What? I like lipstick.)
- Purse-hanger (the kind you can use to hang your purse on the table at a bar).
- Spare keys.
- Sample of a solid conditioner from Lush (ooh! Forgot about that!).
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
An Inspiration
I think that instead of being all, "A poem! A beautiful sunset! My favorite song!" I'll discuss what inspires me as a writer. I've noticed I work really well with prompts. Case in point, right here. My inspiration could be a dry well for an embarrassingly long time, but if someone points to me and says, "Hey you! Write about such-and-such!" then I'll settle in with a notebook and pen and scribble away. Sometimes I can get there on my own, but for the most part it helps to have a jumping off point. You would think that just knowing this would make me a productive writer. It doesn't. It also helps to have a class or a group and deadlines. I've always wanted to go back to grad school for a writing program, but have never been able to justify the thousands of dollars that would cost. Maybe just saying here that "Writing prompts help to inspire me" will inspire me to break them out on my own more often.
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