If My Novels Were Relationships.

A Study in Steel
would be my love-child. I'm always caring for it, nurturing it, working to improve it, defending it from others, and preparing it for the real world.

Night Terrors
would be a bad ex-boyfriend. I keep coming back to it, thinking this time we can make things work. But ultimately we hit the same roadblocks, and in the end we disappoint each other.

Persephone
would be the one that got away. Always wishing it would work out, always imagining, with deep melancholy and wistfulness, how great it could be (if only...), but always inevitably seeing that it's just out of reach.

Depression

 

Depression hurts like bruises trapped in your heart like clouds behind your eyes and scars wrapped around your skin. Anxiety like electricity blazing through your head and worms slithering in your veins. Fear like hands gripping your wrists, tying you down and clamping your mouth shut, but if it opened all you could do is scream because the world is crashing down on you even when nothing is wrong. Mean Reds like noise in your head, driving you away from your life and under the covers. Hide. Run. Don't smile. Don't talk. Cry. Just cry and hide and let the lonely in as the world goes on around you like a ride that's just too high. Just too fast. You weren't invited and wouldn't have any fun anyway. It's your life and it's always just out of reach.

2013.

My first note of the new year is to never again drink "Red Velvet" flavored anything unless you like to have your cake and drink it too.
We couldn't even finish the bottle, every sip left my mouth feeling like it'd been bathed in super-sweet cherry chocolate. I should have just gotten the cheap plain bubbly.
Oh well, we'll find something to celebrate for and drink champagne so I can get my yearly fix.

My NYE was uneventful, but happily highlighted by a small plate of sushi and a bottle of Hana Awaka (to myself). The sweet, sparkly sake is something I've turned into my own NYE tradition. Not cheap, but worth it once a year. Then the two of us played a quick practice game of Munchkin Bites on the floor and watched tv.

This week my focus has to be on editing and getting as much of my current assignment done before the school year starts back up. I want to have a paycheck on the way before I go back to the awkward, stressful mediocrity that is substituting.

My new years resolutions are mediocre as well, with just the same things that are pretty much on the list every single year. Not hard things, necessarily, but not simple, specific ones, either.

The two things I really want to do this year are to be more of myself-- which first requires me to really find out what that means, which is the hard part --  and to create more. I read recently that one of the problems today is that we are consumers, not creators. We consume what others have made; food, tv, games, music, books, art, etc., without creating enough of our own. I'd like to create something every day this year, even if it's as simple as a drawing or a blog entry or a story or a meal. Every single day; something created.

So go out and live and love and smile and create in the New Year.

A New Year on Its Way

So I sort of have a new computer. On loan, basically. And I only have it for two weeks before I'm probably lending it to someone else for a month, so... not having my own computer has been an oddly placid hassle. I use the boys, usually, but when he's not home I don't really have the chance to write or work (I'm officially a freelance Editor now, win!). And when he isn't home I tend to feed my Triple Town addiction...

But a new year is on its way, which means a new collage and pages of resolutions in my Bible, hopefully a party where I can dress up and drink champagne, and a short-lived feeling of newness and rebirth come the first few days of January.
But right now, for the first time in quite a while, things seems to have potential. I'm working (a little) and still a substitute teacher (can't wait to get out of that, but at least I get to make my own schedule) and Christmas (my favorite holiday, even as an atheist) left me with a lot of things I really kind of needed. Clothes that I actually like and can wear to work, so I can finally throw away some of the things I've had since I was 14; a new cookware set so I'm not eating bits of Teflon in my soups; and a lot of things I actually kind of wanted: books, blankets, a munchkin game.

Somehow, I feel a very slight, subtle sense of... possibility, for the first time since I graduated college. I even have a little pile of story ideas spinning around in my head that I think are eager to get out, including a fantasy series (comic?) that was originally my partner's idea, but I've evolved and would like to write down, and a dark children's story that I think could be really good.

I'm afraid of this too, unfortunately, because much of this possibility will have to begin with a cleansing of what currently is. 

I need to throw away my scratched and broken pots and pans to make room for my beautiful new set.
I need to throw away the clothes that are torn, don't fit, and I just don't like, and finally make room for a wardrobe that I actually look forward to wearing, and create a more concrete (though still completely fluid) visual identity that I actually like, and makes me feel like me.
I need to redo the office and its contents for the beau's new Drafting Table-- which means his hulking desk is now mine, which is another new beginning to cleanse and start.
I need to reevaluate my living space as a whole to find a way to keep it clean and love it and discourage laziness.
I need to purge myself of laziness and focus wholeheartedly on this work that I really really want to do for the rest of my life, which I'm finally taking baby steps towards.
I need to reevaluate my working life, since I didn't get into grad school and now have a large span of time without a proper plan or indication of what/where I want to be. This is slightly alleviated by the point above, but as my freelance work is small and only just beginning to crawl, there has to  be something else in the meantime.
I need to pour energy into my body (exercise) and relationship (attitude) by letting go of the past and beginning again.

And these aren't even my resolutions. Though now that I've written them they're definitely going in my Bible...

Having said that, I need to get to work. I have a new novel to edit, and I haven't even gotten to the second page.

Wish me luck.

"Superheated infusion of free-radicals and tannin"

So we've been doing our afternoon tea almost every day this week. 

Our first tea. I need a bigger tray...

Despite my original menu, this week we've mostly been having:

Cucumber & Cream Cheese Sandwiches

Salmon & Cream Cheese Sandwiches

Strawberry Pocky

Almond Pocky ($.75!)

Pimento Cheese Sandwiches

Butter Crackers ($.69!)) with EuroCrem

Toast with Butter & Jam

Green Tea

Irish Breakfast Tea

Chai Tea

Had these mango cookies: too sweet to eat!!

I like it, but it's having the opposite effect from what I wanted. Instead of refreshing myself with a light snack and hot drink, I end up feeling full and even more sleepy! I've been trying to work with caffeinated teas, but no helpfulness so far!

Somehow the pocky and buttered toast are still my favorites!

But as the weeks gone on, we're losing steam as far as doing it every day. Thursday we just didn't feel like it, and today there wasn't much point because we were both home most of the day.

I'm hoping to start it back up tomorrow, though it might have to be with coffee instead of tea...

Upcoming food ideas are pimento cheese & bacon sandwiches, fruit slices, and (hopefully) pumpkin muffins.

Drink up!

A Weetzie Party

I'm imagining a party. 

A birthday party, maybe.

Where all the decorations are pink and purple and covered in glitter, and fake flowers are strewn across the room. Paper stars hanging from branches, glitter garland around the doors and tables. Confetti on every table to spray around the rooms.


The invitations are sent out in little white envelopes, filled with glitter confetti that dances to the floor when you open it.

Pink champagne and hibiscus tea to drink,
tiny cakes with rainbow sprinkles litter the table.
Veggie hummus dip, dried hibiscus snacks.

Everyone has to be lovely, in glam dresses and flower crowns and silver tiaras, dress pants and dapper vests and hats. Glitter on every cheek and bright, colorful bracelets jingling from everyone's wrists.

The Beatles should play in the background. And african drum beats and salsa and David Bowie. Everyone dances and everyone smiles.

A Love Letter to Food [part 1]

I've recently decided to end my love affair with food.
I know, it's crazy, and I probably won't be able to do it, but I'm determined.
Being obsessed with food means I spend too much on it, thinking it's more important than everything else, and I miss out on other opportunities that would require that money. But I don't really enjoy it the way I used to. Going out to dinner isn't an event for me anymore, and having an awesome meal only makes enough pleasure to last the meal, not afterwards, like it used to. Maybe this is something that should be remedied, but until then, it is a hinderance.
So, I'm giving up my excessive food spending and making a new pact to be happy in all ways, not just culinary ones.

So this is my love letter to food, and all the beautiful, delicious things I'm not going to let take over my life anymore, and will miss sorely.

  Asian food is my wild lover. Spicy sometimes, refreshing others, and only occasionally sweet, like Thai tea with cream that courses through my veins in rich, luscious waves. Vietnamese "Bun" with cold, soft noodles topped with crisp lettuce and veggies, fried onions, crunchy peanuts, hot, delicious spring rolls that bring the bowl to heavenly levels, all smothered in a sweet, salty ichor more like broth than dipping sauce. Mussamun curry, rich and nutty and sweet. Summer rolls like a mouthful of cold, refreshing summer afternoon drinks in a breeze that seems to open the sky. Papaya salad, like a chilly, orgasmic kick in the mouth, overflowing with spices and citrus flavor. Korean bar-b-que, with sizzling pork belly on a hot gas grill, smothered in spicy pepper sauce and wrapped in a leaf with rice, garlic, green onions. Kimchi and rice with a dripping fried egg. A table full of dim sum; dumplings and shrimp crepes and bao buns, oh my. How can I ever resist you?


Sushi. My ultimate obsession. Cool, refreshing, amazing. Expeeeensive.
Rich, luscious yellow tail in thick pink slices. Buttery white tuna that melts in your mouth. Oily, meaty salmon that stays with you after you finish. Spicy tuna hand rolls like heaven in a cone. Fiery, meaty, crunchy, delicious.
Uni. Ah, sea urchin. Salty. Sweet. Soft. Briny like the sea itself with that smooth, ephemeral taste that dissolves on your tongue and wraps its way around your taste buds. I can never have enough.




Frozen yogurt has become an obsession in the world. Giant swirls of the icy cream treat, drowning in piles of fresh mangoes, crushed cereal, chocolate chunks, bits of gram-cracker covered cheesecake bites, and squishy fruit pearls like sweet, candy eggs of fruit juice.
My favorite is always original, plain yogurt flavored, although it always seems to have a different name.
Nothing but fruit on mine, please, fresh cut and tart with it's realness. Juice bubbles too, please, popping between my teeth in an explosion of sweetness. Occasionally chewy mochi, bits of cereal, or a layer of marshmallow fluff graces my bowl, but rarely are chocolates, cookies, or candies present.

Seafood is my nostalgia food. I lived in Florida for a (very) short time when I was little. Moving from there to the south instilled in me a feeling of constant wistfulness for the joys of Florida. The sunshine, the relaxation, the clear waters, and-- most of all-- the food. Fresh seafood, fresher than just about anywhere else I've been. Crabs, shrimp, clams, oysters, and did I mention crabs? I've always loved snow crab legs, garlic blue crabs, king crabs, stone crabs. *sigh* And I've grown to love things I didn't even eat then, like the puffs of sea-water in raw oysters, the lightly seared scallops, salmon in just about any creamy, smooth sauce, and lets not forget the sushi I've become so obsessed with.



Most of these images were actually taken by me. The others are from the web, and when clicked should take you to the original page.