On sunflowers.

Sometimes you come home to a big beautiful bunch of sunflowers on your kitchen table. Sometimes they're in the same purple vase that the first bouquet was in, over a year ago. And sometimes, you find someone who thinks about brightening your day as much as you think about brightening theirs. And it is good.

On nonsense.

I wish I could write a graphic novel, something poignant and funny and dark like Lynda Barry or Alison Bechdel or Mariko & Jillian Tamaki. I like writing and reading and art, and I want to participate and make things, but I never know how. I feel like there's a perfect medium out there that just keeps eluding me and when I find it I will be home. Can you get to the point where you've read so many books that they start spilling out of you in original novels? Maybe I just haven't read enough books. Natalie Goldberg says that there is no more perfect time to write than right now this very second, and that writing is a discipline. I agree, but I am very undisciplined. I am also reading about how to like myself more, and how to think less about how I wish I were something else. I read self-help books a lot -- with Buddhist flavorings! -- and cry on the bus sometimes. It's embarrassing, like everything in life.

All I know is that I want to get away from having to see the angry and disappoitned masses every day, to walk on unforgiving concrete and the grimy artifice that comes with living in a city. I want to live in an old farmhouse, with a big wooden desk of my own, full of pens and colored pencils and watercolors, and notebooks of all shapes and sizes and textures. And I will sit in the liltingly beautiful hours of the early morning and write nonsense, and draw nonsense, and out of it will come a small worthwhile thing that will make the passing day worth finishing. Or out of it will come nothing, and I will try again the next day. And it will be my desk, and it won't be covered in clothes and homework like my current desk is now, because our apartment is too small for me to really work at my desk. And I will have chickens and vegetables, and no neighbors, a few cats and my loving partner, hodgepodge family/friend dinners, and lots of dirt but no smog. And I will feel truly alone-without-lonely for the first time and I will feel safe and full and free to do what I need to do for growth. But all these things require money and how do you find time to work for adequate amounts of money when you have to keep your soul alive, too?

I need to find a way to check out of the rat race, or I will be trampled. The pulpy remnants of violently squeezed childhood joy and wonder are something that I have to spend the rest of my life protecting inside myself. I've gotta get out of all this, for the sake of my soul, and fully inhabit my body as a world apart from this ugly dog fight of grades, the greed, minimum wage, competitive resume-writing, applications, interviews, proving yourself, proving yourself, proving yourself...I feel like a cat that has been dropped into the ocean: confused, miserable, slowly drowning, but desperately aware that there is a better place, one of comfort and acceptance and clinging to the hope that someday that place will be accessible and that place will be home.

 

 

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

City Livin'

I wanted to show off the apartment a little bit as it is now: 2 months lived-in, about 90% put together, cluttered as hell, and my sanctuary. It's not perfect, but what is? I don't care if your home looks like it was ripped out of a Martha Stewart-y blog, because if you're not comfortable in it, you should change it immediately. Get comfortable and fuck what other people think about how it looks or feels or what the layout is.

Swag! Swag! Swag!

Firstly, because it is Sunday, the official day of being a boring lump, I am going to make a lump of a post, and show you what food we bought this week. Secondly, I have accidentally cut myself with knives 3 times in the past two weeks! Come on! I need to work on being more zen and centered, and not such an Edward Scissorhands. I am very haphazard and unintentionally frazzled more often than I want to be. Reading helps, and so does doing dishes and other chores, or taking small pauses in my day just to think about the earth that sustains me and the love in my life. Anyway...

This weekend involved lots of grocery shopping -- at the Farmer's Market, at Woodman's, and at Trader Joe's. My Mom came down to visit for the weekend, so her, Mr. Cheap, & I got up at the ungodly hour of 5:30 a.m. on Saturday morning to get to the Farmer's Market bright and early. There's basically no one there, so social anxieties are at a minimum, and you get the undivided attention of the vendors, because they are chipper with the prospect of a new day, not worn down after giving their 85th sample to a not-really-interested-in-buying-just-snacking patron. It was still dark (with a bright shiny moon) when we arrived, and that made it sort of magical for me. Produce-hunting in the dark!

Milk Adventures!

So, just so you all know, I've been reading a LOT about the "real food" movement, specifically Nina Planck's book Real Food: What To Eat and Why. In short, we are taking small steps toward eating a diet that more closely resembles the one described above: avoid processing (apart from natural processing, like creating yogurt at home) at all costs, avoid vegetable oils (excluding olive oil & coconut oil), grass-fed/pastured/organic meats, eat whole milk (raw is preferable) foods, eat eggs and their tasty yolks, lots of fresh vegetables, sea salt, fermented foods, and such. Our first adventure: trying whole milk!

I have never in my life drank whole milk, and there is a gallon sitting in my fridge right now, staring me down. Mr. Cheap is at work, otherwise I'd try a glass right now, but I want to try it together (oddest couple activity ever?). We'd ultimately like to connect with a farmer so we can drink full-fat, unhomogenized, unpasteurized, raw milk straight from grass-fed cows, but baby steps, people! Baby steps! According to the real food diet (similar to the Paleo diet, if you're familiar -- the two are often equated, it seems), whole milk is better than skim because it doesn't skim off the nutrition. Those fats are good for you, and you should eat them. So, before raw milk comes the small transition from 1% to whole. Additionally, the majority of skim, 1% and 2% sold in stores is actually flash-dried milk powder re-mixed with water. Gross -- by then all the living enzymes are DEAD and you're drinking milk void of most of its inherent nutrition. Anyway, here we go...

THE VERDICT

Mr. Cheap: "Pfft, it tastes exactly the fucking same. (heavy on the sarcasm) Verdict, awesome!"

I, personally, can tell that it tastes fattier, but it's not impossible to drink. I was worried that it would taste like straight cream, and gross me out. But, it is quite delicious and almost...filling? More like a tiny meal than just a beverage, like skim and 1% seem. A bit anticlimactic, but give it a shot, everyone! If the real food movement appeals to you like it does to me -- "Well, heart disease literally began as food become industrialized...I trust whole foods we've been eating for hundreds of years more than Soy Tofu Cream Cheese Replacement with Added Vitamins! Robot Food, I say!"  -- then switching to whole milk (preferably unpasteurized and unhomogenized and raw, but my current gallon is neither of the three, and I'm still going for it!) is a great way to start. 

A Ghost Story!

We got a cat! Her name is Ghost, and she is estimated to be around two years old, but she's only 6 pounds and tiny as a kitten, so I'm not convinced. She was found as a stray living on a golf course, but now she lives with us. She loves chin scratches, being held like a baby, and hiding under the sofa. 

She loves helping me make tuna sandwiches for my lunch box. She loves helping so much, she even eats some of it. 

Homemade Half-Wheat Pizza Dough

This recipe is foolproof, truly. If you are afraid of baking, or bread, or anything: fear not! Also, there is only 1 hour total rising time, which I think is pretty reasonable.


This is not a whole-wheat pizza. It is a half-wheat pizza. I used half whole-wheat flour, and half white flour, because that is what I have available!

Makes 2 Pizza Crusts!

Ingredients

1 1/4 c warm water

1 T yeast (about 1 individual packet)

1 t sugar

1 t salt

3 c flour (1.5 white, 1.5 wheat)

oil

 Add sugar and water in bowl.  Mix, and continue mixing while slowly adding the yeast. This prevents it from clumping! Let this mixture sit for 10 minutes so the yeast has time to react and get nice and fluffy. I recommend sitting down and watching the yeast bloom in the bowl. It's strange and beautiful. 


Once mixture looks reasonably...mixed, add salt,  and one cup of flour. Mix it in thoroughly.

Add 2 more cups of flour, and stir for 2 - 3 minutes. It might not look completely mixed in, but that is okay.

Dump the mixture on the counter, and knead 6 - 8 min. If you don't know how to knead, this explains it, both verbally and pictorally! Kneading is a very important step, do not skimp or over-knead. Also, if the dough feels too sticky to knead comfortably, rub flour on your hands (or put a sprinkle on the counter) as needed and proceed. For beginners weary of using too much flour, err on the side of less: about 1 Tb on the counter as needed, and repeat as little as possible.

Continue kneading until dough is smooth & firm. Place the ball of dough in a lightly oiled (this is where the oil comes in!) bowl. Cover the bowl with a white kitchen towel and set it in a warm, but not hot, place. (this is what I was always taught -- I am not entirely sure why).

Let sit for 45 minutes. I let it sit for an hour, actually, because it just feels right, but I guarantee that if you're short on time, 45 is absolutely adequate.

Once the 45 minutes pass, it's a good time to preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Next, rip the ball of dough in half, and get ready to knead again. Don't worry -- just for 3 minutes (per dough-half). Put back in oiled bowl (no need to re-oil), and let rest for 15 more minutes.

Take two cookie sheets out (or pizza stones!), lightly oil (with PAM or whatever you prefer) and roll each dough half out, respectively.  You will want to make two pizzas when you realize how delicious this is, so just do it. Once rolled out, I like to rub it down with olive oil (thoroughly, in all the cracks and creases) and top it with fresh minced garlic, dried basil, oregano, chili powder, etc. Then, poke holes in the crust and bake it f0r 6 minutes. This firms up the crust, so you don't get soggy pizza.

Remove the crust from the oven, add toppings (mozzarella! mushrooms! sauce (have an almost empty jar of spaghetti sauce in the fridge? use it! especially if it's alfredo...) spinach! pepperoni! be adventurous!), and bake around 12 minutes, at the same temperature.  Slice with a pizza cutter, and EAT!

Fresh Bruschetta!

I technically used this recipe, although it's pretty self-explanatory if you're familiar with bruschetta! Also, my listed ingredients will be slightly different than the ingredients on the linked recipe. I'd follow mine if I were you, because I can confirm that it was excellent.