And now for something more depressing than depression...

And that is Love.

I've been milling around the topic for a few days, for a myriad of reasons, but didn't really know what framework I wanted to put it in. 

I have been dating fairly actively since becoming abruptly single in February, and I haven't found that thing.  I've met lots of very cool people that I enjoy spending time with (sometimes even without clothing!)  And if that was all it took to foster love I'd have a preponderance of love, but there's something else.  If love were daisies, then I have sun and water and seeds... but I need some fertilizer. Ha.  I'm literally asking for shit.

I want distraction of the best kind, and surreptitious, constant texts of little import.  I want kisses that steal my breath, and discussion about nothing in particular, that are actually about everything.

I want to feel safe enough to storm about, throwing my things this way and that, knowing that person can and will weather it, without a second thought.  I want to weather the storms they birth, without wondering if they are miserable and on the verge of leaving.  I want safety in a battered harbor.

I want a religious experience.  I want to silently pray using our huge emotions, all entangled limbs in a dark room, to a god that exists in the space that our breath fills.  I want the kind of utter faith I can surrender to, that makes me believe not only in it's ability to make miracles, but makes me believe that I am capable of miracles too. 

I want a mirror that doesn't look like me.  I want to ask and receive.  I want to be asked of and give.  I want to be valued, pursued, dragged out of my own brain... not because it allows easy access to my underpants, but because it allows easy access to my soul.

It's fucking cheesy, I know, and I wonder if it really exists, or if I'm just describing the chemically pleasing state that pheromones and novelty produce when two people haven't tired of each other's fertilizer yet.

I need love.  But the last thing I need is another person who loves me without knowing how.

In Numbers, or Not

(This blog was originally posted 12/28/2008.  I liked it enough to rehash it here. m)

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.”- Helen Keller

In these times, when three or four of my friends have been laid off, and when it isn't inconceivable for me to be worried about my position, I do have to wonder about this illusion of safety we all live under...

Sure, there's the old adage that most of us are one paycheck away from being homeless....
But even worse, we are all really on the precipice of life and death every single day.  We climb into giant hurdling machines and up the ante by eating or talking on the phone, or turning radio stations.  We eat food that we would not be able to identify if it were broken down to it's alien simple particles.  We do things every day that are likely to make us targets of random violence or victims of hapless accidents. 

I answered a meme-ish survey about the last time I was close to dying.  I answered truthfully, "right now... and right now... and right now."

That tingle in my spine could be a brain tumor, the pain in my thigh could be blood clot making its way towards my heart.  I could be dead by morning and not ever have known what hit me.  Unlikely sure, but unlikelier things happen all the time.  My best friend in high school had the same first and middle name as me.  I'd say the odds of me dying on any given day of any given thing are at least as good as that.

So before you check out and say to yourself, "Oh she's going to get all morbid again," I do have a real point.  And that is that maybe most of us should stop living with the illusion that we are safe.  Maybe we need to stop avoiding risk in the hopes that we will live far into our golden years.. when if you think about it, the years you have now have the potential to be so much greater than your "golden" years... if you just let them.

Pet that snake
Jump off that cliff
Date that guy
Make that trip

And yes, face that goddamned whale.

Carpe that fucking diem my friends, because when we go, we might as well leave a bunch of puzzled on-lookers staring at our corpse and saying, "what the hell was THAT?!"

A Tip for all the fab Missed Connection posters

(I posted this on Craigslist, Missed Connections.  I read them religiously, and it sates my nosy little heart like no celebrity gossip rag ever could.  Certain trends, however, were getting on my nerves.  As I am 104% sure it will be flagged and removed, I've posted it here for posterity as well. Enjoy.)

I'm sure this will be flagged shortly, as anything that isn't a photo of a penis or a scam usually is... but here goes.

You saw that hottie on the train? You wanted to say hi, but chickened out? It's cool, post a missed connection!
Who knows, they may read it and contact you!

I've had one hit (a conversation in a grocery store turned into an awkward first date... is that a hit?) and one miss (I pined after a bartender, and was informed promptly that EVERYONE pines over said bartender. Oh well) on my own- it could happen to you!

Here are some tips I've formulated from reading these things obsessively every night...

1. You posted a pic? Great! Is it relevant? For reals, that could mean a penis pic if that's the only way your MC would recognize you... is it a cat picture, when your post has nothing to do with cats? Fail.

2. You have an eye for a cute waitress at IHOP, and want to tell her how she warms your syrup? Post it, describe her so she knows it is her... don't describe YOU, unless you had, like, three eyes. If you add, "Tell me what shirt I was wearing" to your post, it's only revealing that you think a whole lot of yourself, that she would remember your no-tipping ass after a long hard day at work (actually, if you didn't tip- better not to post at all. She WILL remember you. And not fondly.) How bout, in order to weed out ravenous waitress-imposters, ask her to comment on something about herself that you noticed.) She'll probably remember that.

3. M4M- no tips, gentlemen, keep doing what you do. Seriously, the lovely gay men of the bay area have more fabulous sex then any other population, anywhere, ever. Keep posting and making me smile, darlings.

4. Initials. You realize there are only 26 letters in the english alphabet, don't you? While it may weed things down a wee bit, posting a vague note to "J" is unlikely to produce results you'd like... Unless of course the object of your affection is named Quincy. or Xavier. In those cases, carry on. Why not try a descriptor with your initial? A zodiac sign? Anything?

5. For the most effectiveness, if your goal is to actually re-connect with that MC, put something specific in your title, and choose your location wisely and specifically. A title of "Beautiful" in the general SF Bay area is unlikely to catch the person you are jonesin' for. Try, "You accidently brushed against my butt at the Hillsdale Starbucks today. And I liked it."

6. Prepare to be flagged for absolutely no reason. What's up with that?

7. Gentlemen. This actually transcends CL- MC-land, and covers a piece of advice in the real world.... We ladies are not vehicles for our rockin' boobies. Therefore, addressing posts to our boobies alone is unlikely to garner a response. As our boobies can't type. (Well, mine can't anyway... if you happen to be that talented, let me know.)

8. Ladies. It's okay to let him go. Call up your best friend and read that poem to her. If she's a good friend, she'll tell you not to post it- after she regains her composure from laughing so hard. If she says post it- THEN post it. And move on. You are lovely and wonderful and deserve someone who thinks so too.

9. Pretty please don't flag me. Please? With a cherry on top?

10. Keep on doing what you do, and letting it all hang out. I love love love reading these things. For reals.

Don't Even Get Me Started on the Almonds...

Someone in the cafeteria where I work has pissed off God.

That's the only explanation I can come up with for the TWO floods that have plagued the good people who work there. I mean, even Noah only got one flood.  I don't know what that person did, but they should probably work it out with their personal savior so that we can get our "special eggs" on.  I suspect the offense had something to do with Turkey Thursday, but I can't prove it.

Anyway, being that our normal lunch spot was underwater, we meandered over to a smaller cafe with a sandwich bar. While we waited in line, we saw a sign.  I have seen similar signs to this, but not ever with this wording.  I have seen numerous nut warning signs that say things like:

"May contain nuts."
"This area contains products that may contain trace amounts of nuts."
And even: "Cannot guarantee that this product is nut-free"- a label that I think applies to more than just allergies...

But recently, at our small contingency sandwich shop, we saw a sign that said,

MADE IN THE PRESENCE OF PEANUTS AND WALNUTS.

Which of course my brain translated to:

A Short Excerpt of a Domestic Conversation

The boyfriend and I are lounging, discussing his text message traffic (homeboy maintains a large, chatty posse.)  One of his friends is discussing a current potential paramour...

He: He's a German... furniture maker?
Me: Must be a hipster.

This is when he shoots me an "explain" look...

Me: Furniture makers are all hipsters. Or the Amish. Or people who do it because their father gave them a store, that was given to him by his father.  That's it.

He:  You should draw that.

And so I did- See?

I don't know why I imagine the Amish are so angry. But I do.

Mad props to the iPad app Paper by 53, for helping me draw this.
Also mad props to Karmin, because every time I drew something today in Paper, I sang, "I'm makin' paper!"

Accidentally Domesticated, or a Recipe for Strawberry Ginger Chicken

So I can't cook.  I've burned water.  My ramen always comes out looking less like Justin Timberlake's hair, mid- N'Sync, ane more like Anna Nicole Smith's towards the end there... (too soon?)

I digress.

I've been telling the boyfriend this secret, me not cooking, for months- a loud and clear disclaimer to warn him of impending foodborne pathogens. 

Unfortunately, everything I've made so far has turned out decent, by some fabulous fluke, so that I maybe actually started taking an interest in this cooking thing.  The people at Taco Bell started missing me, I am pretty sure.

So anyways, this fabulous luck with cooking for the boyfriend, coincided with my discovery of the best time-wasting site on the planet- Pinterest.

I found that there was a mess of stuff I wanted to try, and if I liked it, I could pin recipes to a board, with my modifications in the comments, so that I could repeat.  This seemed like a decent system, and a good excuse to feed my innernets addiction.  Wendy's called and begged me to return.

So, I was getting a repertoire, when today, I noticed that I had defrosted chicken, and had no recipe to use on it.  Being in a rank mood, I threw the chicken in a bowl to figure out some sort of marinade, and re-opened the last glass of chardonnay in a bottle that had been sitting in my fridge, so I could drink and cook, like it was the fifties or some such thing.

Alas, the wine had moved into vinegar territory, so I tossed it into the bowl with the unsuspecting chicken.  Figuring that wine is beigey-yellow, and ginger is beigey-yellow, and I had to use some more of that fresh ginger before it went bad, and remembering that the boyfriend goes kind of nuts for ginger, I grated a whole mess of it on top of the chicken. 

And then I saw them.  The motherflippin' strawberries. 

So, the boyfriend and I live mostly alone.  A small tornado in the shape of a twelve year old boy descends on the weekends.  We don't hold dinner parties.  And yet, for some reason, the boyfriend bought a container of strawberries the size of a Prius.  Of course, at Costco.  Besides endlessly snacking, I thought about this amazing blackberry barbecue chicken sandwich I have for lunch sometimes. If blackberries go well with chicken, why not strawberries?  So I grated the strawberries (is that even a thing?  Do people grate strawberries??) into the chicken next. 

I figured I might need some real ingredients after this, so I added enough soy sauce to make the dish look legit, and some oregano, chili pepper, black pepper and a whole mess of garlic powder, in case it turned out bad, I could blame the garlic.  I let that sit for about two hours, while the boyfriend whipped up some completely nomming yellow potatoes and broccoli (because unlike me, he CAN cook.) and thought about whether or not to open more wine....

Eventually, the timing was right to put the chicken in, so I turned the broiler onto high, and put the two breasts on a drip pan, dusted a fine layer of parmesan cheese (because everything is better with cheese) over the top of the chicken and put them into the oven. After they started to brown, I flipped them, sprinkled parmesan on the bottom, surfed the innernets (did I mention I'm an addict?), and then after I cut into the biggest one (maybe 20 minutes?) and saw that it was cooked all the way through, I yanked those bad boys out.

And then I went to post my revisions to the recipe on pinterest.... and realized I had nothing to pin, because I made the whole thing up.  So here I am, munching on strawberries and posting this so I can pin it.

The End?  Or maybe I should post this in recipe format?

Strawberry Ginger Chicken

Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts- defrosted
1 glass worth of old chardonnay, prolly a Central Valley wine
Grated ginger, grate until you don't feel like grating any more (maybe half a cup?)
Grated strawberries (again, is this a thing?), four or five really big ones, not the green parts.
Soy sauce- a few good shakes (perhaps a cup? 3/4 cup- definitely enough so the chicken is still visible, but like, doing a breast stroke in it...)

A whole mess of:
Oregano
Black pepper
Garlic powder (or salt? crap- one second....nope, definitely powder)
Ground chili powder
Enough parmesan cheese to sprinkle over both sides.

To Do:

1. Combine everything but the parmesan in a big pink bowl. Mix well and let sit for about two hours.
2. Set Broiler to High, place chicken breasts on broiler pan, and dust with parmesan cheese.
3. Cook for about 20 minutes, or when the middles don't scream "SALMONELLA!" at you.  About halfway through, flip and dust the reverse side with parmesan cheese.
4. Do something with the leftover chicken sludge.  I guess some people might use this to baste, but is this not introducing raw chicken to cooked chicken? That seems wrong somehow, so I dumped it.
5. Con your significant other into making a side dish by being cute and appealing to his very expansive generous nature.

This served me and the boyfriend, with leftovers, because I wasn't very hungry.

On Copy Machine Tyranny

Ordering Copier Toner- Old Regime:

I call, I say my six digit serial number VERY CLEARLY.

They transfer me to Tiffany in Jamaica (no joke.)

She confirms my name, location and number, while saying the  phrase, "by the way" far too often. I don't have the heart to explain that "by the way" isn't a lead-in phrase.

One minute later, I have a confirmation that cyan/magenta/yellow toner is zooming towards me... within three days.

Ordering Copier Toner- New Regime:

Call 800 number. Follow several prompts until I reach a human. Give the human my serial number. Human tells me I need to call my local office. Gives me local office, and representatives name.

Call local office, which disavows any knowledge of said representative, and also my machine. Offers to take a message. I leave a message.

TWO WEEKS LATER...

I call again, and get processed through a phone tree, which directs me to a website.

I try to order toner through the website, which directs me to the same 800 number.

I call the 800 number again and get the following-

PRESS 1 for for supplies under a contract

1

If you have an all-inclusive contract, press 1

1

If you would like supplies, press 1

1

Press 1 for supplies under a contract

1

To order supplies, please see our website.......

At which point, my head exploded.  Luckily, my brains are cyan, magenta, and yellow, so my co-workers were able to restock the machine with them nicely.