Goal Update: Lessons in Vegan Cooking

Accomplished goal #64 tonight - cook a recipe from the vegan cookbook.

The book is Vegan World Fusion and comes from the Blossoming Lotus, my new favorite place to eat. The food is outstanding and vegan softserve is a new flavor everyday and costs $1.

Tried the Polenta and Forbidden Rice Casserole with Black Bean Sauce (sorry, if you want recipes, buy the book, I guarantee it's worth it). Added the optional fennel and shitake mushrooms and used soy milk. Next time, eliminate fennel (too strong), more shitake (delicious), chop all more finely, use coconut milk (more delicious), use less rice (just enough for the bottom of the dish) and more polenta. The Black Bean Sauce was fantastically delicious as is, although I would have liked a slightly thicker consistency, perhaps to be achieved through hand mashing some of the beans instead of blending the lot together in the blender.

It was okay - my guests were generous with their praise, though and the wine - from Cooper Mountain - was great. Cooper Mountain definitely going on the grocery list and into the budget.

Later note (if you can believe me when it comes to time): The leftovers were even better and I think the dish would be improved by the addition of corn bread batter baked on top. Maybe that's how polenta should turn out or blasphemy to the polenta, but I might try it next time. In addition to my "No Fault" cooking rules, I'm going to have a "No Rules" rule - anything goes, as long as it tastes good.

All Dressed Up and No Where To Go

I look great. My hair is freshly cut and colored, my face made up dramatically. Sexy clothes, all in black. No, I'm not going to the nightclub, but planned on going to my catering job. In fact, went to my catering job. And was sent home because the expected party of 300 tanked with less than 20 people arriving in the first hour. Since I rode in with E and A was at a movie, I had to take public transit home and now I find myself looking good and feeling bad.

These kinds of things throw me into a funk and I get pissy at the world. And then I decide that I'm not going to be pissy and instead I'm going to productive. On the train, I planned all the things I would do - get into some comfy clothes, walk the dog then work on my side project until I'm tired then either watch a movie or read before having an early sleep. Then I got home, sat in front of the computer and can't seem to get myself going. I could have toted drinks and spoken to the class of 1997 all night, but now that I'm home, I can't get off my increasingly fat ass even to take off this incredibly uncomfortable but very sexy bra.

I hope anyone reading this is laughing, because I am - I'm being more than a little melodramatic. Hyperbole just comes easily to me, especially in this state of mind. I am pretty pissy and very annoyed at the place of business though. For about 2 minutes, I fantasized about posting a Craigslist rant about the bar I was working at and their bad business practices, such as how they encourage the servers to "push alcohol," but then I realized that if found, they would easily figure out that the server who got sent home was probably the one who wrote it. If they didn't sue me for slander, they would at least fire me. And even though I don't want to work there anymore due to the shoddy management, poor execution and unenjoyable coworkers, I don't want that to be their decision.

Maybe I better take a bunch of deep breaths and listen to the chanting CDs before E gets off (yes, she's working there, too and yes, it's that bar) and A calls after his movie since I am really good at channeling my frustration and irritation onto other people when it's really nothing more than a bad situation that I'm struggling to deal with. I think run-on sentences, when said aloud, just fuel one's annoyance and bitchy attitude too. Maybe it's the lack of oxygen from speaking continually. I find myself holding my breath even when typing long sentences. Maybe that's how non-violent communication works. Short sentences such as such as 'I see,' 'I feel,' 'I need' and 'I would like' allow much more breathing. Maybe it'll help to take the bra off too.

Simplicity

A friend recently wrote about how complicated our lives have gotten and wondered about how we can strip out some of the chaos of our lives and live more simply. I don't know the answer, but I know the question and the discussion have a lot of value. I went camping last weekend - just one night out under the stars watching a meteor shower. It was my first and I was awed like a little girl watching the streaks across the sky. I felt so small and yet so connected in that moment...to the cosmos, to the earth I was lying on and to the people around me, some of whom I knew, some I'd just met and one I was particularly prepared not to like. Well, the meteors didn't make me like said person any better, but maybe they helped me gain a little perspective.

For the overnight camping trip, A and I packed my truck full of many useful and useless things, including air mattresses, a battery operated air pump, games, wine, cups, extra blankets, clean clothes, camp chairs, a camp stove and pans for camp cooking and hot cocoa... I always hate being made fun of for over-packing, but I enjoyed sleeping comfortably and being able to drink a bottle of my favorite wine while seated comfortably at camp. In this instance, it seems that simplicity is having what we need. As I'm looking forward to moving in the next 30 days, simplicity seems the exact opposite as I go through my class notes, files, clothes, dog supplies and other misc to clear out as much clutter as possible before moving.

Another area in which I consider clearing clutter is the Internet. I irregularly read a couple of blogs and nowadays irregularly post here. It suits me and I use this to my own ends. I also have a smattering of email accounts, a craigslist account, an activity site account and, reluctantly, a MySpace account. I do much of my financial work online, I have many expired dating site profiles, and belong to many list servers that send me information that I usually just delete without even opening. I hear about people having accounts on LiveJournal, FaceBook, Friendster, MySpace and many others and how they have to keep up with what everyone is posting. What is that about? I can barely keep up with a few friends in real life let alone a bunch of people posting all day long to various sites.

Of the 2 blogs (down from 3, but more on that later) that I regularly tune into, 1 is a friend a speak to with some regularity. When we speak, she may ask "have you read my blog today?" but this is just her way of knowing if I'm already filled in. When the answer is invariably "no," she just tells me what's going on. I often then go read the blog to fill in any spots she left out and see how her perspective has changed in the intervening time. I like reading her blog, but I prefer speaking to her in person or on the phone. It's more fun to spend time together and hang out. Less opportunity for misunderstanding, too - which is the main reason I'm only a reader of 2 blogs these days instead of 3.

At any rate, I don't know how to simplify any better than the next person, but I'm going to paste the word serenity on the wall above my computer as a reminder of my core values so that I don't get sucked any deeper into the quagmire of Internet activities. To paraphrase many a bumper sticker, "I'd rather be paddling."

For Someone Else

Been thinking about journaling lately and remembered another journal I kept: a travel journal of my time in Australia. I found a great little bound journal and I wrote about the boys I met, the places I traveled, the animals I held/touched/pet/fed and the parties we had. It was neither profound nor really that interesting. When I later put together a scrap book based on my trip, I included some quotes from the journal with the intention of scrapping the journal altogether.

When I told my good friend D about this plan, she said there was no way this was a good idea and that I had to keep the journal, if not for myself, then for her. I offerred her the journal which she declined while still insisting that I keep it. It's this request, really, that got my wheels turning more than thoughts of the journal itself. She wanted me to keep the journal of not very interesting things for her. Not so that she could read it, which would have been better facilitated by her keeping the journal since she lived on one coast and I moved to the other, but so that she knew it was there.

By extension I started thinking about other requests people make of one to something for them. E owns two couches - the overstuffed and very comfortable loveseat was given by her mother and the hide-a-bed full length, but surprisingly good-in-a-small-space sofa was given to her by her father and step-mother. When she thought of selling one or both couches when we moved into our tiny condo, her mother threw a fit at the notion of E selling the sofa she had gotton her -had she gotton rid of it, it would mean that E didn't love her mother and furthermore, if she kept the hide-a-bed, it would mean a preference for the dad and step-mother. It's like that with gifts, too and not just for E - this happens to almost everyone. People pull some things out of storage and put them on prominent display when relatives come to call to show how highly they prize the gifts people have gotton them.

The idea that I have about this is that doing something for another person can be okay, but it can also lead to being something for another person. For example, E is a packrat and lots of the things she keeps are things that came from her mother. She started off doing something: saving things and then started being something: a packrat. I know that's my label, but even if you take the word away, there is this tendancy that has become a real and unhealthy habit not of her own choosing. And I only use E as an example because this is a really easy one to relate to and talk about. I can talk about her and not myself.

It's a lot more scary to talk about the things that I do and what they might possibly allow me to become if I am not mindful. For the time being, though, I guess I can be glad of the 3,000 miles between my family and I: the gifts are small and infrequent, they rarely visit and they don't notice or care if I don't have them anymore.

Timelines

I do this really weird thing with my blog. I pre- and post-date items all the time. Sometimes I've started writing something and then finished it up much later and sometimes I just willfully change the date. I like to bury some of the more personal items so that they don't appear at the top of the front page. It's not that I mind people reading them, otherwise this would not be a public blog, but I just don't want those items to draw that much focus right away.

It's a somewhat strange habit and today I wondered if I would ever look back at this blog and try to reconstruct my life from it. And if I would believe that I got a haircut before I took boards, because that, in fact, happened a week later.

I also like changing the date because I can enter things in for my own searchable history, such as quotes, words of the day and poetry that I'm not really trying to share. Maybe I'll just randomly start entering things from the year 2000 - if there is anything under that year, it was definately entered late because as of this writing, there is nothing in 2000 and I only started writing in Blogspot in 2007. Yes, even those posts in 2006 were entered later, although they were, in fact, written or posted on the days indicated, just on another blog site.

Was thinking of my first journals today. I remember reading them again later and being disgusted with 13-year-old-me's writings and deciding to clean the slate by getting rid of them. I sometimes regret that decision, but mostly because of the strong visual image (and visceral responce) I have to the first page of any journal I ever wrote. It was a VISITOR sticker put onto a sheet of lined paper. It was from the time I visited my father at an Indiana state treatment center for alcoholics. I didn't even know what it meant, but I remember that my dad was different there than other times I'd seen him - maybe less funny, but more stable. That was how I first started journaling.

Note: after posting this, I changed the date on it and I realize that part of my neurosis about this date-changing business is that I like each post to appear on a different day. Often writing one post leads me to another topic or tangent that becomes its own post, and I like them to appear in order, but not as though they were written at the same time. I wonder why that matters to me?

Bragging Rights

So the clouds are lifting...as is the moratorium on blogging and other "non-essential" computer works. Naturopathic board exams are 2/3 completed and I'm feeling pretty good. Immediately after the exams, I sometimes feel a little small, but it's also a bit unfair for me to assess every question that I know (and that I know I know - i.e., I know I'm right) as being too easy for the exam. Today I also took a state test which allows one reference book and I feel like I aced that one. Only 3 questions still stumped me at the end and they were the ones everyone was asking about. As this is more reflective of how things will likely be in practice, I feel stronger already.

I don't feel that it's appropriate to brag (or hope?) out loud amongst friends, but here, let me say that there is a chance that I may pass these board exams. Passing means I do not have to retake them in February at a cost of $750 and that I can be licensed in 2007 or 2008 at my pleasure.

Acupuncture boards and thesis still looming, but this will be dealt with after wrapping these boards and moving.

A Good Haircut is SO Worth It!

I did end up spending a pretty penny to get prettier and it was worth it. I know that my boyfriend, who checks his hair in the mirror more than I do, understands the value of a fresh haircut, but I hope other men can understand. If your woman gets in a funk, sponsor a fresh cut, a facial or some other spa treatment.

A cut, color and some hair product and I'm feeling sexy, beautiful and like I want to be nice to the world again. Yes, this is who I am.