Dear TV execs,
I understand that you have good reasons to pull shows after they have only aired five episodes. One good reason is low viewership. In this fast paced world where everyone's thoughts, actions and opinions can be broadcast to the world in a nanosecond, you are giving the world exactly one nanosecond to decide to watch the show and then you are giving the show the boot.
Some examples? Pushing Daisies. The Unusuals. Life on Mars. OK, so Pushing Daisies got about three nanoseconds, but you know what I mean. You don't give anyone a chance to know the show, you don't bother to look at how many people are really watching the show (on DVR, online, on their mobile devices), and instead of letting us make a decision on our own you just cram more CSI, Law & Order, and American Idol down our throats. Do those shows sell advertising space? Hell yes they do. But you are just shooting yourselves in the foot. You're missing out on whole demographics of people who would like something more filling.
Next season I'm not going to bother watching any new shows. If they're good they'll get canceled and if they're bad I'm sure they'll be on for four seasons and I can spend some quality time ignoring those shows while I watch Mary Tyler Moore, Good Times, and Bob Newhart.
Speaking of Mary Tyler Moore - did you know they weren't sure if they were going to have more than one season? They did, of course, have many seasons. The network decided to find a good time slot instead of just giving it the boot. Imagine what incredible shows we might have today had you folks not pulled the plugs so early: Freaks & Geeks, for one. It might have run its course by now but it would have foudn its way into the hearts of millions of viewers. What about My So Called Life? What about Dead Like Me?
And to the writers of the shows that are being picked up for this fall - what the hell were you fighting for in that contract strike a few years ago? The right to get royalties from Two and a Half Men? That show sucks. That's the legacy you want to leave? Next time you strike, ask for something good - like a guaranteed 12 episode run of a show so it has a chance to gain a following. Why are you letting them shit all over your hard work by yanking it so quickly? Some of you work very hard and very well and all you ever get is unemployed. But I digress.
Network heads, stop and ask yourselves why you are picking up a ninth - NINTH - season of Scrubs (which has long since lost its luster) and letting shows like The Unusuals fall by the wayside. Seriously? You're giving Samantha Who the boot and keeping Desperate Housewives? Seriously? Even after that season finale? And you're giving me three new episodes of Pushing Daisies after taking the show away so suddenly? Quit yanking my chain! Either giving me quality TV or don't - but don't keep tricking me into thinking you've come to your senses when obviously you haven't!
How about this - why don't you give bubble shows a summer run? I know most people don't watch a lot of TV in the summer, but that's because everything is in reruns. I would watch summer shows. I'm already looking forward to Monk and Psych. And I know I'm not the only TV addict who would be happy to curl up in front of the air conditioner and get to know a new cast and storyline. After all, what is DVR for if not to record the new stuff in the summer and watch it when you're ready to come in from the heat? But you don't have enough sense to use DVR to your advantange. This leaves me with one option.
I'm done with you. I'm not watching your new drivel this fall. I'm not going to watch something called Cougar Town. I'm going to fill my days with the current shows that I already watch and all the shows you'd never air these days: All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Golden Girls, and all the rest. Play your stupid nano games, I'm gonna go watch TV.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
This means you
I've been trying to figure out how to say this without sounding like it's just another post complaining about my mom. I feel like it's something that needs to be said, and, unfortunately, she is being made into an example. Well, that's her problem. Here goes:
Last night as I watched the numbers rise, as the networks, one by one, announced the winner, I had one thought repeating in my head:
"It's over."
Not just the election (though I'm glad to be rid of that as well) but the eight long years of the ignorance and arrogance of the Bush regime. The dark times were over. It's over.
I watched McCain's concession speech with my jaw agape and tears in my eyes. My mom, a staunch Republican, stood in the kitchen, eating her dinner. Of all the places in the kitchen where she could have stood, she made sure to stand where I could see her. Her back was to me. After McCain's speech I was walking through the kitchen, and she moved as I moved - she made sure her back stayed toward me.
When Obama told his daughters that they had earned a puppy, she scoffed, "Oh, geez." All night long she was making sarcastic comments, following each one with, "Oh, I didn't mean that. I'm just in mourning."
Look, this has to stop. Republicans, don't turn your back on this country. Don't turn your back on this president. Don't wallow in your party's loss when you can be celebrating your country's future. I know you don't see it. You see every bad quality, every evil - real or imagined - all packed into one skinny black senator from Hyde Park. You see in him likely what the rest of us saw in McCain. But look beyond that. We need you.
Democrats have a majority in the Senate, in the House, in the voting booths. But we need you, now more than ever, to make sure that another voice is heard. We need to know that when we are out there making a change, you are out there changing with us. Not because we want you to give up your life's philosophies and turn blue, but because we are all Americans and we are all depending on each other to get this country through these tough times.
Don't turn your back on us, Republicans. We are still one nation, we still share one hope. We still have a common dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The nation can't heal and won't thrive without you. It won't get done on any one party's terms, and it won't get done if we can't work together and face the problems of this nation as a nation united against ignorance and hate.
Don't give America the cold shoulder. It's your America, too. Help us make it something to be proud of again.
And to all of you who went out yesterday and make history in the voting booths, you aren't done. You and I everyone else all have a lot of work to do. Your commitment to this country cannot end after the acceptance speech. Get out. Make a better life for us. Democracy is not a spectator sport. It's time to get in the game.
Last night as I watched the numbers rise, as the networks, one by one, announced the winner, I had one thought repeating in my head:
"It's over."
Not just the election (though I'm glad to be rid of that as well) but the eight long years of the ignorance and arrogance of the Bush regime. The dark times were over. It's over.
I watched McCain's concession speech with my jaw agape and tears in my eyes. My mom, a staunch Republican, stood in the kitchen, eating her dinner. Of all the places in the kitchen where she could have stood, she made sure to stand where I could see her. Her back was to me. After McCain's speech I was walking through the kitchen, and she moved as I moved - she made sure her back stayed toward me.
When Obama told his daughters that they had earned a puppy, she scoffed, "Oh, geez." All night long she was making sarcastic comments, following each one with, "Oh, I didn't mean that. I'm just in mourning."
Look, this has to stop. Republicans, don't turn your back on this country. Don't turn your back on this president. Don't wallow in your party's loss when you can be celebrating your country's future. I know you don't see it. You see every bad quality, every evil - real or imagined - all packed into one skinny black senator from Hyde Park. You see in him likely what the rest of us saw in McCain. But look beyond that. We need you.
Democrats have a majority in the Senate, in the House, in the voting booths. But we need you, now more than ever, to make sure that another voice is heard. We need to know that when we are out there making a change, you are out there changing with us. Not because we want you to give up your life's philosophies and turn blue, but because we are all Americans and we are all depending on each other to get this country through these tough times.
Don't turn your back on us, Republicans. We are still one nation, we still share one hope. We still have a common dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The nation can't heal and won't thrive without you. It won't get done on any one party's terms, and it won't get done if we can't work together and face the problems of this nation as a nation united against ignorance and hate.
Don't give America the cold shoulder. It's your America, too. Help us make it something to be proud of again.
And to all of you who went out yesterday and make history in the voting booths, you aren't done. You and I everyone else all have a lot of work to do. Your commitment to this country cannot end after the acceptance speech. Get out. Make a better life for us. Democracy is not a spectator sport. It's time to get in the game.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Hate is hate
'Hanging Palin' causes Halloween display uproar
Freedom of speech is pretty awesome. I'm all for it. But I know ignorance when I see it and those of you who are championing this guy, saying "it's just art" and that it should be left up there because you hate Palin, too, should consider this:
What if it were an Obama doll?
What if someone prominently displayed a mannequin resembling the man who might be the first black President of the United States hanging from a rope? Oh, the outrage! Oh, the condemnation!
Two years ago, at Louisiana's Jenna High School, the discovery of nooses attracted the attention of the FBI. Yes, that FBI. Just for the presence of nooses with nothing in them.
But because Palin is a white woman, nobody is batting an eye. Is implied violence only offensive when it's against racial minorities or gays? Those of you rallying around this display, would you be able to hold your tongue and call it "freedom of speech" if, across town, someone had Obama "surrounded by flames" as McCain is in this same display? I doubt it. Hating white people is no better than hating black people.
Are you free to believe and say what you want? Why yes, of course. But I have to ask: when your hateful statements are basically the same as their hateful statements, who have you become?
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Re-COUNT
I live in Illinois. We're a blue state, have been for ages. Our state is going to go to Obama, no matter what I do. Recently I overheard some co-workers talking about how it's not even worth it to go to the polls because our votes wouldn't matter (we're going to Obama), and even if we were a swing state, our votes wouldn't matter because of the electoral college. And I know it's true, but it still pisses me off.
What can I do at a polling place that matters? I don't trust either one of those rich fuckers. According to opensecrets.org, McCain has raised $230 million and Obama has raised $454 million. They're both elitists. They are both richer than I will ever even hope to dream of being.
Neither one of those rich fuckers will ever know what it's like to sell possessions to put gas in their cars. (I had to do that three weeks ago). Neither one will ever have to take a jar of coins down to the CoinStar and lose 8.9¢/dollar just to get money to turn into quarters to do laundry. (That was two weeks ago). And you can bet your sweet ass that neither one of them has ever had to use to a windbreaker as a winter coat (in Chicago, no less) and sat around on the el trying not to cry because everybody else looked so warm and cozy. (That was ten years ago.)
So I'm doing something different. I am going to count this year. I am not voting for either one of those over-funded, over-polished, under-hearted jackasses. I'm putting my vote in for a third party. "No! Not another one!" you're thinking. "That's how we lost in 2000, you ninny!" you might be screaming at your monitor. No, no. You don't understand. My vote won't elect Obama or McCain. My vote will, however, get us one tiny step further on the road to eliminating the two party system. It will not be lost in the millions of other moot votes, it will not be just a drop in the ocean running towards the pockets of American politicians and the corporations that pull their strings. My ancestors didn't fight for my right to sit idly by and be another brick in the wall. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Susan B Anthony, and all those forgotten others, did not fight so that my vote could be cast in vain.
To the disillusioned millions out there who think their votes do not count, I say you're doing it wrong. You're voting for the leaders of Corporate America, not the leaders of our America. You're voting for bailouts for the rich and the legislation of motherhood, death, and love. What does John McCain know about women that gives him the right to say if we can have an abortion? What right has Barak Obama to tell the millions of terminally ill Americans that they can't die a dignified, peaceful death at the mercy of a needle? What right does anybody have to tell us who to love, and how, and whether we can be married? None. Absolutely none.
You have got to stop voting for the candidate who had the best stories on Letterman or the guy who did the funniest skit on SNL. You have got to stop that NOW. You have to stop voting for what's cool and start voting for what is right. The two party system isn't right. The electoral college isn't right. But the absence of your voice is your permission for this mess to continue. You cannot sit on your ass, stuffing your face and watching "America's Next Top Model" and expect anything at all to change. YOU are the change. YOU have the right, the power, and the responsibility to vote for someone who doesn't speak for Corporate America. The problems of our nation, of our world, rest on your shoulders.
Stop doing what the TV tells you to do. Be somebody you can be proud of. Turn off your fucking iPod and stand up to count for something. Start a revolution.
What can I do at a polling place that matters? I don't trust either one of those rich fuckers. According to opensecrets.org, McCain has raised $230 million and Obama has raised $454 million. They're both elitists. They are both richer than I will ever even hope to dream of being.
Neither one of those rich fuckers will ever know what it's like to sell possessions to put gas in their cars. (I had to do that three weeks ago). Neither one will ever have to take a jar of coins down to the CoinStar and lose 8.9¢/dollar just to get money to turn into quarters to do laundry. (That was two weeks ago). And you can bet your sweet ass that neither one of them has ever had to use to a windbreaker as a winter coat (in Chicago, no less) and sat around on the el trying not to cry because everybody else looked so warm and cozy. (That was ten years ago.)
So I'm doing something different. I am going to count this year. I am not voting for either one of those over-funded, over-polished, under-hearted jackasses. I'm putting my vote in for a third party. "No! Not another one!" you're thinking. "That's how we lost in 2000, you ninny!" you might be screaming at your monitor. No, no. You don't understand. My vote won't elect Obama or McCain. My vote will, however, get us one tiny step further on the road to eliminating the two party system. It will not be lost in the millions of other moot votes, it will not be just a drop in the ocean running towards the pockets of American politicians and the corporations that pull their strings. My ancestors didn't fight for my right to sit idly by and be another brick in the wall. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Susan B Anthony, and all those forgotten others, did not fight so that my vote could be cast in vain.
To the disillusioned millions out there who think their votes do not count, I say you're doing it wrong. You're voting for the leaders of Corporate America, not the leaders of our America. You're voting for bailouts for the rich and the legislation of motherhood, death, and love. What does John McCain know about women that gives him the right to say if we can have an abortion? What right has Barak Obama to tell the millions of terminally ill Americans that they can't die a dignified, peaceful death at the mercy of a needle? What right does anybody have to tell us who to love, and how, and whether we can be married? None. Absolutely none.
You have got to stop voting for the candidate who had the best stories on Letterman or the guy who did the funniest skit on SNL. You have got to stop that NOW. You have to stop voting for what's cool and start voting for what is right. The two party system isn't right. The electoral college isn't right. But the absence of your voice is your permission for this mess to continue. You cannot sit on your ass, stuffing your face and watching "America's Next Top Model" and expect anything at all to change. YOU are the change. YOU have the right, the power, and the responsibility to vote for someone who doesn't speak for Corporate America. The problems of our nation, of our world, rest on your shoulders.
Stop doing what the TV tells you to do. Be somebody you can be proud of. Turn off your fucking iPod and stand up to count for something. Start a revolution.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Lipstick? Pigs?
That's what you fuckers want to talk about? Lipstick on pigs?
Shut the fuck up and fix the economy. Stop fighting with each other and get a damn thing done. I mean jesus h christ on a pony, why do you act like you matter when nothing you've ever one is worth a damn?
I mean, seriously: fuck you.
Shut the fuck up and fix the economy. Stop fighting with each other and get a damn thing done. I mean jesus h christ on a pony, why do you act like you matter when nothing you've ever one is worth a damn?
I mean, seriously: fuck you.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
My tomato plant is PMSing...
I got a tomato plant from the farmers' market a few weeks ago. It shot up like a weed, got a bunch of blooms, and now it's got little green bulbs on three of the blooms. They're not actually tomatoes yet, they're swollen ovaries. Yeesh. Sounds like something out of 7th grade health class.
But this is so much better:
But this is so much better:
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
I find guilt in the most ridiculous places
Due to unexpected popular demand, here is a generic picture of the car I got (picture stolen from cars.com):
Except my sister-in-law (who had the car before me) had all the windows tinted, so be sure to keep that in mind. That's the paint color I have, though.
No road trips yet (gas is $4.25 for fuck's sake), though I did take it out for my favorite drive on Sunday night:
Down the highway to Lower Wacker Drive (an underground thoroughfare that has changed quite a bit since it was featured in the big chase scene in "Blues Brothers"), over to Lake Shore Drive (where I get smacked in the face with a stunning view of the lake), up to a kind of up-scale neighborhood, around a waste of space called the Nature Museum ("Here are the types of grass you'll find in Illinois" and they don't mean the fun kind), then racing back down again. There are few things in the world that calm me down as much as that drive does.
My old car, Dox, would die when he was idling so I'd sit at red lights with my foot on the gas. I still find myself doing that. Also, if I found myself driving a nice car in the past 5 years or so, it was a car that I had borrowed that had automatic transmission. Dox was a stick, and so is the Kia (tentatively named Trixie), but I forget that I'm driving a stick with Trixie and sometimes find myself going 35 in second gear.
I'm having to re-learn how to drive stick. Trixie has four working speakers and no broken engine parts, and no dial on the dashboard telling me my current RPMs, so I have to really pay attention to know when to switch gears. Also, Dox's transmission was in such poor shape that I could switch gears with just one finger. Trixie has a good transmission, so I have to actually have my hand free to switch gears.
Trixie doesn't have power steering, so every time I turn I say to myself, "Gun show. GUN SHOW!" trying to really put some muscle in it so I have something to bring to the (you guessed it) gun show.
Trixie is clean, doesn't smell funny, has no rust or dents, has four working doors and five working seat belts, a fancy flip-down stereo, gets a modest 26 miles to the gallon (Dox got 9...that's not a typo, he got nine), and doesn't reek of gas for ten minutes after you kill the engine. There is no cause for embarrassment when I drive her, and people at the bus stop no longer look in my direction with hope and then disappointment after realizing it's not their bus, it's just Dox's muffler. In every way (except air conditioning) she is a vast improvement.
But in my heart of hearts, I miss Dox every damn day. If I didn't have an audience around me when they put him on the junk yard's tow truck, I honestly would have been in tears. He was my trusty steed through some of the most amazing and scary years of my life, and I loved him like an old friend.
Even when he was broken down, even when his expired tags got me arrested, I still loved that car. There have been very few times in my life that I have felt like a completely unredeemable asshole, and selling him to the junk yard for $150 is definitely in the top 5.
The guy who put him on the flat bed didn't understand that his brakes didn't work and that he'd have to pull Dox up the ramp with the chain. When he realized it and brought Dox back down the the street, he scraped Dox's muffler. I wanted to punch him.
Except my sister-in-law (who had the car before me) had all the windows tinted, so be sure to keep that in mind. That's the paint color I have, though.
No road trips yet (gas is $4.25 for fuck's sake), though I did take it out for my favorite drive on Sunday night:
Down the highway to Lower Wacker Drive (an underground thoroughfare that has changed quite a bit since it was featured in the big chase scene in "Blues Brothers"), over to Lake Shore Drive (where I get smacked in the face with a stunning view of the lake), up to a kind of up-scale neighborhood, around a waste of space called the Nature Museum ("Here are the types of grass you'll find in Illinois" and they don't mean the fun kind), then racing back down again. There are few things in the world that calm me down as much as that drive does.
My old car, Dox, would die when he was idling so I'd sit at red lights with my foot on the gas. I still find myself doing that. Also, if I found myself driving a nice car in the past 5 years or so, it was a car that I had borrowed that had automatic transmission. Dox was a stick, and so is the Kia (tentatively named Trixie), but I forget that I'm driving a stick with Trixie and sometimes find myself going 35 in second gear.
I'm having to re-learn how to drive stick. Trixie has four working speakers and no broken engine parts, and no dial on the dashboard telling me my current RPMs, so I have to really pay attention to know when to switch gears. Also, Dox's transmission was in such poor shape that I could switch gears with just one finger. Trixie has a good transmission, so I have to actually have my hand free to switch gears.
Trixie doesn't have power steering, so every time I turn I say to myself, "Gun show. GUN SHOW!" trying to really put some muscle in it so I have something to bring to the (you guessed it) gun show.
Trixie is clean, doesn't smell funny, has no rust or dents, has four working doors and five working seat belts, a fancy flip-down stereo, gets a modest 26 miles to the gallon (Dox got 9...that's not a typo, he got nine), and doesn't reek of gas for ten minutes after you kill the engine. There is no cause for embarrassment when I drive her, and people at the bus stop no longer look in my direction with hope and then disappointment after realizing it's not their bus, it's just Dox's muffler. In every way (except air conditioning) she is a vast improvement.
But in my heart of hearts, I miss Dox every damn day. If I didn't have an audience around me when they put him on the junk yard's tow truck, I honestly would have been in tears. He was my trusty steed through some of the most amazing and scary years of my life, and I loved him like an old friend.
Even when he was broken down, even when his expired tags got me arrested, I still loved that car. There have been very few times in my life that I have felt like a completely unredeemable asshole, and selling him to the junk yard for $150 is definitely in the top 5.
The guy who put him on the flat bed didn't understand that his brakes didn't work and that he'd have to pull Dox up the ramp with the chain. When he realized it and brought Dox back down the the street, he scraped Dox's muffler. I wanted to punch him.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Friday's (late) Feast
Appetizer
What is the nearest big city to your home?
Chicago. Sprawling, wonderful, intricate, lovely Chicago.
Soup
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how well do you keep secrets?
Pretty well. Of course, about 40% of the time I forget I even know the secrets I'm told. The fact is, people tell me secrets, and then it turns out the secrets aren't interesting at all, so I forget about them almost immediately.
I'm pretty good about keeping the juicy ones, though.
Salad
Describe your hair (color, texture, length).
It's brown, ramrod straight, falling past my shoulders. Nothing useful can be done with it. Whatever you try, it just straightens itself right out again. Color from the home coloring kits won't stay in it, neither will curls or clips. It's obnoxious.
Main Course
What kind of driver are you? Courteous? Aggressive? Slow?
I am the only person in the tri-state area who knows how to drive. I have a news flash for you bitches: at a four-way stop, the right of way goes like this:
1. People turning right.
2. People going straight.
3. People turning left.
So the next time I'm turning left and you just sit there staring at me, don't look all shocked when I cuss you out.
Other than four-way stops, I'm pretty laid back. I cuss at people a lot, but I'm not aggressive. I like to play cribbage on license plates. I let people in to "re-shuffle" my hand.
Dessert
When was the last time you had a really bad week?
Early April, whenever that trip to St. Louis was. That was pretty awful. But my noggin is finally all healed up!
Thursday, May 22, 2008
We don’t need no education
I read an article today talking about how education isn't look at as a way to broaden your horizons so much as it is a way to stay out of minimum wage jobs.
Part of it said:
"Most of their talks inspire, but many have also adopted an underlying message that links education, graduation, and material success. It's a message that unwittingly reduces the worth of an education to the expected wages it can bring. It sees tuition not as a ticket to a liberated mind but as a down payment on future income. In our excitement for the graduates, we've put the emphasis in the wrong place."
Look, this is 2008. It has been years since I've met anybody who wants to actually debate an issue. Everybody I meet thinks that any issue more serious than the latest episode of "Lost" is boring, or they have an interest in the important topics but lack the ability to debate. They just want to yell.
I've been working on my 2-year degree for three years now. I didn't want to go to college for the learning; I wanted to go to college so I could get a job that didn't involve cleaning toilets. That's it.
The art of debate and the importance of democratic debate are lost on our citizens. Basically, nobody gives a shit.
Why do you think gay marriage is suddenly being talked about again? Because nobody really thinks about real issues, and everybody understands gay marriage. It's a valid way to win voters.
Why does Congress keep calling the heads of the big oil companies up to discuss gas prices, and then not doing anything about it? Well, if you were bothering to learn all you can about the situation, you would know that these prices are being driven by investors who have no place else to put their money.
On May 6th, oil prices went up based solely on the speculation that oil prices would go up. What the hell does the oil company have to do with any of that? Nothing. That's big business, Wall Street, free trade.
If you bothered to use your education and the resources around you, you would notice that nearly every day the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P are down, even though nearly every day the price of oil hits a new high. The other stocks are falling fast, and oil is the only sure thing around. Congress - college graduates, all of them - should know this. This parade of oil tycoons is frivolous and pointless, and they know it. But they're banking on us to vote for them because they called the oil execs in to talk to them. Because none of us really uses anything we've learned to find out what a bunch of morons Congress takes us for.
Everybody living in poverty now who is thinking "man I really wish I could afford college" isn't going to college to learn about Schrodinger's cat, world history, or the Pythagorean Theorem - they're going so they can make money and get out of poverty.
When a kid brings home a bad report card, the parents say "What about college?" Not because they're concerned that Junior is going to vote for the wrong politician, but because they're concerned that Junior will never get a job and move out.
We are a country built on capitalism. We love it, we embrace it. We are addicted to it. We love our credit cards and our shiny electronics and our fast cars. All we want is more toys. We have no interest in the goings on around the world unless it's dirty laundry or dead people. This is why we know a lot about the lives of the members of the Royal Family, but most of us don't know how to find Myanmar on a map. And the only reason we are bothering to wonder where Myanmar is is because there are a lot of dead people there.
So yes, we go to school for the wrong reasons. We retain little, if anything, of what we learn there. But we get our degrees and buy our toys and raise our kids to go to college so that they, in turn, can buy nice things. This shouldn't be surprising. If we could make more money any other way we would. An education is the next best thing to a guaranteed higher income.
Look at all the people will college educations who can't even grasp the difference between "there," "their," and "they're," people who don't know what's wrong with the sign that says "10 items or less," and people who think Benjamin Franklin was a President are making more money than me. Why? Because they have a degree. They don't really know anything, they just have a degree. And they're doing great.
This is America. We don't need no education; we just want to be able to afford our rock n roll lifestyle.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Intro to Introverts
"Introvert" is defined as "a person who tends to shrink from social contacts and to become preoccupied with their own thoughts."
That's what I do. Some people mistake it for being shy, but it's not the same. See, when you're shy, you really want to meet new people and talk to strangers who seem interesting, but you're scared to. With introverts, we don't really want to meet those people or talk to those strangers. Hell, even people we know and like aren't always people we want to talk to.
For introverts, hell is having to talk to people at breakfast. For introverts, small talk is a form of torture that should be covered under the Geneva Convention.
We don't hate you, and we are not being anti-social. We're just a special shade of indifferent. We prefer thoughtful silence to constant yammering.
Yes, we get bored of it and we go out. On occasion we can fake it and make it look like we are not the social retards you've known us to be. And then we run home and spend hours by ourselves doing whatever we please, and reveling in it.
We are not the wallflowers who are wishing people would come over and talk to us, we are the wallflowers who are enjoying watching other people talk. It's not that we have nothing to contribute or nothing to talk about - no, quite the opposite. I will sit and talk about some subjects with total strangers til I'm blue in the face. Chicago history is one of those subjects. So is juicy gossip. But sitting around talking about the weather or stocks or other boring things, well, I tend to tune that out. And if you want to make me hate you, then by all means let's start a deep discussion about spirituality or our feelings.
Alone is not the same as lonely. If I wanted company, I would call people and go see those people. And I'm not just staring blankly into space when you do corral me into going out, I am pondering things that I don't feel like explaining.
I'm not being uppity or elitist, I just...well, I just don't feel sociable. That's a pretty basic explanation of introversion. I'm not depressed or upset or in need of special attention, I just am not a big talker around people I hardly know, and I have no interest in entertaining people.
I don't go out on Friday nights. By 5:30 Friday afternoon I basically can't stand anybody. I have talked politely to every moron, cheapskate, and lunatic that has walked past my desk. Of course there are nice people who come to my desk, but these respites are brief and only make the slack-jawed morons seem more unbearable. There is a very short list of people I would even bother to pick up the phone for on a Friday night, and most of those people know better than to call me when they get off work.
That's not to say I just sit home and stare at the walls. Sometimes I go downtown, or go for a walk or a drive. I can be okay in a crowd where nobody knows me, because nobody will strike up a banal conversation with me. I can't be out with people I know and like, who know and like me, because they will expect me to be chatty and sociable, and I just don't have that in me by the end of the week.
It's how introverts are.
So don't be offended if we don't come out very often. Don't get huffy when we leave your party early or turn down invitations to just hang out. Don't get all upset when we do come out and we don't have much to say. It's just who we are.
And face it, you wouldn't have us any other way.
That's what I do. Some people mistake it for being shy, but it's not the same. See, when you're shy, you really want to meet new people and talk to strangers who seem interesting, but you're scared to. With introverts, we don't really want to meet those people or talk to those strangers. Hell, even people we know and like aren't always people we want to talk to.
For introverts, hell is having to talk to people at breakfast. For introverts, small talk is a form of torture that should be covered under the Geneva Convention.
We don't hate you, and we are not being anti-social. We're just a special shade of indifferent. We prefer thoughtful silence to constant yammering.
Yes, we get bored of it and we go out. On occasion we can fake it and make it look like we are not the social retards you've known us to be. And then we run home and spend hours by ourselves doing whatever we please, and reveling in it.
We are not the wallflowers who are wishing people would come over and talk to us, we are the wallflowers who are enjoying watching other people talk. It's not that we have nothing to contribute or nothing to talk about - no, quite the opposite. I will sit and talk about some subjects with total strangers til I'm blue in the face. Chicago history is one of those subjects. So is juicy gossip. But sitting around talking about the weather or stocks or other boring things, well, I tend to tune that out. And if you want to make me hate you, then by all means let's start a deep discussion about spirituality or our feelings.
Alone is not the same as lonely. If I wanted company, I would call people and go see those people. And I'm not just staring blankly into space when you do corral me into going out, I am pondering things that I don't feel like explaining.
I'm not being uppity or elitist, I just...well, I just don't feel sociable. That's a pretty basic explanation of introversion. I'm not depressed or upset or in need of special attention, I just am not a big talker around people I hardly know, and I have no interest in entertaining people.
I don't go out on Friday nights. By 5:30 Friday afternoon I basically can't stand anybody. I have talked politely to every moron, cheapskate, and lunatic that has walked past my desk. Of course there are nice people who come to my desk, but these respites are brief and only make the slack-jawed morons seem more unbearable. There is a very short list of people I would even bother to pick up the phone for on a Friday night, and most of those people know better than to call me when they get off work.
That's not to say I just sit home and stare at the walls. Sometimes I go downtown, or go for a walk or a drive. I can be okay in a crowd where nobody knows me, because nobody will strike up a banal conversation with me. I can't be out with people I know and like, who know and like me, because they will expect me to be chatty and sociable, and I just don't have that in me by the end of the week.
It's how introverts are.
So don't be offended if we don't come out very often. Don't get huffy when we leave your party early or turn down invitations to just hang out. Don't get all upset when we do come out and we don't have much to say. It's just who we are.
And face it, you wouldn't have us any other way.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Goodbye, June! Hello, teen angst!
My mom's coming to stay with me June 6-28. This is kind of a big deal. She's in town for a series of three classes she has to take to keep her law license current and it's easier to just stay with me instead of flying back and forth three times. Yeah, she's a lawyer. And that's the least of my problems.
See, my mom's crazy. Now hold on, I know you're thinking, "No, MY mom is crazy!" but seriously, my mom is nuts. Level two borderline personality nuts, according the shrink she used to share with my sister. And she's in a cult. By "cult" I mean group of people who make sure only certain people are allowed in the group, and the group is insane. The cult, among other things, doesn't like the colors red, black, orange, and grey. When one of their flock fell over at a restaurant after Temple, they prayed for his ascension (read: death) as he lay there with his heart attack and his new found faith. They don't eat meat (Mom's a vegan), they don't like "bad" music and movies. By "bad" I'm not talking about Lords of Acid and "Debbie Does Dallas," though those certainly count as well. I mean shit like "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Stand by Me." I tried to watch "Stand by Me" with her when I was in high school and she had a panic attack about ten minutes into the movie.
Oh yeah, did I mention the panic attacks? The screaming, crying, throwing things, punching herself in the head panic attacks? The Joan Collins ("no wire hangers!"), gut-wrenching, always-ends-in-suicide-threats-or-a-pity-party panic attacks. She's anemic, too, so when she's hungry these come out in full force.
Oh, her medication? She won't take any. It's against her fucking religion. She also thinks I'm a straight up bitch for asking her to get help. Her current living situation is in my sister's basement that she shares with my sister's eight year old daughter, and the rest of the house is occupied by my sister's other two kids, my sister, and my sister's boyfriend. That house is too small for her drama. She doesn't have a job, though she finally had an inteview last week. It went well.
She still sometimes thinks of me as the lying, mischievous brat I was when I was a kid, when we last lived under the same roof. She didn't get the memo that I grew up, that I know now what I didn't know then, and that I'm well aware of the things that I still don't know. She doesn't say this, she doesn't have to. She's my mom, I know what she's thinking.
She cries at everything. Part of the problem with her coming in is that I have to hide all the stuff that will make her cry. This includes books (Palahniuk, Bukowski, "History of the Devil," etc), music (Lords of Acid, Frank Zappa, Johnny Cash), and DVDs (all the horror movies, the "Arrested Development" set, "Harold and Maude"). I have to hide the red carpet I was going to put by my bed. I already bought a blue comforter for her, since she can't use my orange or red ones.
My siblings don't do this for her. They just do whatever the hell they want and if she can't handle it, it's her problem. We all know she's crazy, and they are always surprised when she acts like she's crazy. Then, when it comes time to have a Serious Talk, she's already wound up and nobody can get through to her.
Me, I like to pick my battles. For the month of June, my battles won't be about "Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "Joe's Garage." I won't come home to find my mother has "accidentally" spilled something on my red rug and threw it out. I won't reach for "Ham on Rye" in mid-July and wonder where it's gone.
We are going to have Serious Talks. We are going to answer the questions "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" and "Why do you think it's appropriate to act like that?"
And that's the part that really gets me down. I don't want to have those talks with my mom. I don't like seeing that look of disappointment that I always brought to her face when I was a kid.
I didn't get the good part of her when I was growing up. I didn't get the carefree era of regular paychecks and a steady boyfriend. I grew up so clenched up and stressed out that I started to just tune her out, tune everybody out. In high school, when my brother was off at college in Alaska and my sister was off married to the wrong man, I got a little bit of Good Mom. She introduced me to classic movies, something I have and will always be grateful for. She showed faith in me, and never once said "Oh, you can't do that," when I wanted to try my hand at anything.
When I was eighteen and my left leg was gripped in unfathomable pain, she held me and cried with me and tried to feel my pain for me, tried to share my burden. She held my hand when we walked down the street and didn't pity me when I was doubled over in pain, walking with my hands down around my ankles because standing up straight was excruciating. She didn't make a big deal about the tears I watched drip off the end of my nose and land - splat - on my oh-so-hip Doc Martens.
I didn't get Good Mom when I was growing up. I got her when I was seventeen, eighteen years old and had her all to myself. I got her when everything was going so wrong in each of our lives, when the world kept hitting each of us separately with the one-two punch of real life and real loss.
My brother and sister didn't get that Mom. They didn't stick around to see how it turned out. That's the Mom I want back, the one who gave me Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and "The Universe Song." That's the mom I'm packing up my stuff for, that's the mom I want to have here in June. Yes, there will be Serious Talks, and there will be crying and fighting. But for a few days at least (hopefully, most of the days), there will be "Operation Petticoat" and "Meet Me in St. Louis." There will be sewing lessons and family stories and (dare I say?) cooking lessons. There will be my mom, my secret mom that my brother and sister never had the patience to know. All this for a month of doing without some of my favorite things.
And to me, that's a bargain.
See, my mom's crazy. Now hold on, I know you're thinking, "No, MY mom is crazy!" but seriously, my mom is nuts. Level two borderline personality nuts, according the shrink she used to share with my sister. And she's in a cult. By "cult" I mean group of people who make sure only certain people are allowed in the group, and the group is insane. The cult, among other things, doesn't like the colors red, black, orange, and grey. When one of their flock fell over at a restaurant after Temple, they prayed for his ascension (read: death) as he lay there with his heart attack and his new found faith. They don't eat meat (Mom's a vegan), they don't like "bad" music and movies. By "bad" I'm not talking about Lords of Acid and "Debbie Does Dallas," though those certainly count as well. I mean shit like "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Stand by Me." I tried to watch "Stand by Me" with her when I was in high school and she had a panic attack about ten minutes into the movie.
Oh yeah, did I mention the panic attacks? The screaming, crying, throwing things, punching herself in the head panic attacks? The Joan Collins ("no wire hangers!"), gut-wrenching, always-ends-in-suicide-threats-or-a-pity-party panic attacks. She's anemic, too, so when she's hungry these come out in full force.
Oh, her medication? She won't take any. It's against her fucking religion. She also thinks I'm a straight up bitch for asking her to get help. Her current living situation is in my sister's basement that she shares with my sister's eight year old daughter, and the rest of the house is occupied by my sister's other two kids, my sister, and my sister's boyfriend. That house is too small for her drama. She doesn't have a job, though she finally had an inteview last week. It went well.
She still sometimes thinks of me as the lying, mischievous brat I was when I was a kid, when we last lived under the same roof. She didn't get the memo that I grew up, that I know now what I didn't know then, and that I'm well aware of the things that I still don't know. She doesn't say this, she doesn't have to. She's my mom, I know what she's thinking.
She cries at everything. Part of the problem with her coming in is that I have to hide all the stuff that will make her cry. This includes books (Palahniuk, Bukowski, "History of the Devil," etc), music (Lords of Acid, Frank Zappa, Johnny Cash), and DVDs (all the horror movies, the "Arrested Development" set, "Harold and Maude"). I have to hide the red carpet I was going to put by my bed. I already bought a blue comforter for her, since she can't use my orange or red ones.
My siblings don't do this for her. They just do whatever the hell they want and if she can't handle it, it's her problem. We all know she's crazy, and they are always surprised when she acts like she's crazy. Then, when it comes time to have a Serious Talk, she's already wound up and nobody can get through to her.
Me, I like to pick my battles. For the month of June, my battles won't be about "Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "Joe's Garage." I won't come home to find my mother has "accidentally" spilled something on my red rug and threw it out. I won't reach for "Ham on Rye" in mid-July and wonder where it's gone.
We are going to have Serious Talks. We are going to answer the questions "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" and "Why do you think it's appropriate to act like that?"
And that's the part that really gets me down. I don't want to have those talks with my mom. I don't like seeing that look of disappointment that I always brought to her face when I was a kid.
I didn't get the good part of her when I was growing up. I didn't get the carefree era of regular paychecks and a steady boyfriend. I grew up so clenched up and stressed out that I started to just tune her out, tune everybody out. In high school, when my brother was off at college in Alaska and my sister was off married to the wrong man, I got a little bit of Good Mom. She introduced me to classic movies, something I have and will always be grateful for. She showed faith in me, and never once said "Oh, you can't do that," when I wanted to try my hand at anything.
When I was eighteen and my left leg was gripped in unfathomable pain, she held me and cried with me and tried to feel my pain for me, tried to share my burden. She held my hand when we walked down the street and didn't pity me when I was doubled over in pain, walking with my hands down around my ankles because standing up straight was excruciating. She didn't make a big deal about the tears I watched drip off the end of my nose and land - splat - on my oh-so-hip Doc Martens.
I didn't get Good Mom when I was growing up. I got her when I was seventeen, eighteen years old and had her all to myself. I got her when everything was going so wrong in each of our lives, when the world kept hitting each of us separately with the one-two punch of real life and real loss.
My brother and sister didn't get that Mom. They didn't stick around to see how it turned out. That's the Mom I want back, the one who gave me Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and "The Universe Song." That's the mom I'm packing up my stuff for, that's the mom I want to have here in June. Yes, there will be Serious Talks, and there will be crying and fighting. But for a few days at least (hopefully, most of the days), there will be "Operation Petticoat" and "Meet Me in St. Louis." There will be sewing lessons and family stories and (dare I say?) cooking lessons. There will be my mom, my secret mom that my brother and sister never had the patience to know. All this for a month of doing without some of my favorite things.
And to me, that's a bargain.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Friday's Feast
Appetizer
What was your favorite cartoon when you were a child?
Oh, there were so many. I loved Scooby-Doo until an incident with my kindergarten teacher that was inexplicably embarassing. She pointed out that "Maggie" (the name I went by then) rhymed with "Shaggy," and giggled in such a way that made it clear that she was making fun of me. Cunt.
I liked Thundercat, Transformers, She-Ra, and Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman figured into my Plans for Being a Grown Up. (These plans, in my mind, deserved capital letters.) I was going to marry Maxwell Smart, and I knew this just as surely as I knew Monday followed Sunday. We were going to live in the city, and we would next door to the A-Team, and Wonder Woman and I were going to Hang Out and be Best Friends and she was going to be nice to me. (This cofession, whispered at the tender age of six to my favorite great-uncle, was met with a grave and understanding nod and best wishes to my future marriage. This is why he was my favorite uncle - he never laughed at my dreams.)
Soup
Pretend you are about to get a new pet. Which animal would you pick, and what would you name it?
I nearly got two parakeets this week. They were offered - along with a cage, bowls, toys, and food - on freecycle on Thursday. I sat at my desk and daydreamed about having two little parakeets, teaching them to say "I pity the fool" and "Psht bitch please." After a doctor staying in the hotel stopped by my desk to bitch about the price of the internet, I added "I gots to get paid, son!" to the list. I would name them Laurel and Hardy, and teach them to sing along when I played my uke. (There was a lot of time for daydreaming on Thursday.)
I looked up what it took to take care of them, and the grand plans for Laurel and Hardy flew the coop, if you'll pardon the expression.
I don't want another cat, they tear things up. I'd love a dog, but my place is too small. Fish are boring, I have a poor history with hamsters and gerbils, and I would never find anyone who would take care of a pet lizard if I went out of town.
So, I started small. My neighbor and I went to the Garfield Park Conservatory today; they were having a sale on herbs and flowers. I got a little geranium that smells like lemon. I named her Gladys and plan to get her a hanging pot tomorrow. If I can make this work, I might try fish next. Wish me luck.
Salad
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how much do you enjoy getting all dressed up for a special occasion?
Ok, here's the thing about me dressing up. I am always the most inappropriately dressed person around. From weddings to court dates to just regular dates, I am always over dressed, under dressed, or just wrongly dressed. I can't get fashion; dumb-ass me always takes into consideration things like "Well there's no way I'm going to make it tonight in shoes like that," and the outfit sullenly follows.
I would love to get dressed up, but there's no place to go and I would do it wrong anyway, so rating this a 10 would be moot.
Main Course
What kind of music do you listen to while you drive?
Depends on my mood. I like loud music, though, so I don't zone out and forget to turn when I should.
Dessert
When was the last time you bought a clock? And in which room did you put it?
I don't remember exactly, but it was probably a CD player/radio/alarm clock and I put it in the bathroom. I like to listen to the radio when I'm taking a shower before bed, and in the morning when I'm getting ready. I don't have one in there now, though. Instead, I torment my neighbors with my atrocious singing at night and in the morning I listen to the news from the bedroom.
That came out wrong. Well, you know what I mean.
What was your favorite cartoon when you were a child?
Oh, there were so many. I loved Scooby-Doo until an incident with my kindergarten teacher that was inexplicably embarassing. She pointed out that "Maggie" (the name I went by then) rhymed with "Shaggy," and giggled in such a way that made it clear that she was making fun of me. Cunt.
I liked Thundercat, Transformers, She-Ra, and Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman figured into my Plans for Being a Grown Up. (These plans, in my mind, deserved capital letters.) I was going to marry Maxwell Smart, and I knew this just as surely as I knew Monday followed Sunday. We were going to live in the city, and we would next door to the A-Team, and Wonder Woman and I were going to Hang Out and be Best Friends and she was going to be nice to me. (This cofession, whispered at the tender age of six to my favorite great-uncle, was met with a grave and understanding nod and best wishes to my future marriage. This is why he was my favorite uncle - he never laughed at my dreams.)
Soup
Pretend you are about to get a new pet. Which animal would you pick, and what would you name it?
I nearly got two parakeets this week. They were offered - along with a cage, bowls, toys, and food - on freecycle on Thursday. I sat at my desk and daydreamed about having two little parakeets, teaching them to say "I pity the fool" and "Psht bitch please." After a doctor staying in the hotel stopped by my desk to bitch about the price of the internet, I added "I gots to get paid, son!" to the list. I would name them Laurel and Hardy, and teach them to sing along when I played my uke. (There was a lot of time for daydreaming on Thursday.)
I looked up what it took to take care of them, and the grand plans for Laurel and Hardy flew the coop, if you'll pardon the expression.
I don't want another cat, they tear things up. I'd love a dog, but my place is too small. Fish are boring, I have a poor history with hamsters and gerbils, and I would never find anyone who would take care of a pet lizard if I went out of town.
So, I started small. My neighbor and I went to the Garfield Park Conservatory today; they were having a sale on herbs and flowers. I got a little geranium that smells like lemon. I named her Gladys and plan to get her a hanging pot tomorrow. If I can make this work, I might try fish next. Wish me luck.
Salad
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how much do you enjoy getting all dressed up for a special occasion?
Ok, here's the thing about me dressing up. I am always the most inappropriately dressed person around. From weddings to court dates to just regular dates, I am always over dressed, under dressed, or just wrongly dressed. I can't get fashion; dumb-ass me always takes into consideration things like "Well there's no way I'm going to make it tonight in shoes like that," and the outfit sullenly follows.
I would love to get dressed up, but there's no place to go and I would do it wrong anyway, so rating this a 10 would be moot.
Main Course
What kind of music do you listen to while you drive?
Depends on my mood. I like loud music, though, so I don't zone out and forget to turn when I should.
Dessert
When was the last time you bought a clock? And in which room did you put it?
I don't remember exactly, but it was probably a CD player/radio/alarm clock and I put it in the bathroom. I like to listen to the radio when I'm taking a shower before bed, and in the morning when I'm getting ready. I don't have one in there now, though. Instead, I torment my neighbors with my atrocious singing at night and in the morning I listen to the news from the bedroom.
That came out wrong. Well, you know what I mean.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Lemon Chicken
Lemon Chicken
My mom sent me an email from SavingDinner.com for lemon chicken. It looked pretty good.
I basically see cooking as a circus (those of you who have seen the mess I can make in a kitchen will see the sense in this), so I see components of a dish in rings. This dish was a three ring circus. First, I had to get the chicken together, then the dipping sauce, and then the bottom of the email (which came to my mom via FlyLady.com) mentioned at the bottom that I could throw some cauliflower in a food processor and then toast it up to serve with the chicken.
So, I start with the first ring. It was a dipping sauce that involved chili garlic paste. I was way too lazy to go find a store that sold that, so I found a recipe for it. I didn't write down what kind of chillies I needed for the recipe, I just wrote on the back of a piece of paper that some asshole had left on the floor (by the trash can) of the computer room at the hotel, "2-3 oz. chillies" and left it at that.
Well I got to the store, and there were all kinds of chillies. I usually shop at a tiny little grocery store across the street, but I needed some stuff that they don't carry so I was at a great big grocery store, and I had basically forgotten how big that place was. There were all kinds of dried chillies to choose from. After getting opposing information from around the country from the people I trust to know about chillies, I was about to give up.
Then a guy and his wife walked up to the chili display and started talking in rapid-fire Spanish. I decided to ask him which chillies are the mildest. I retained enough of my two semesters of Spanish to get out, "Pardone me, necissito chillies pero no me gusta caliente. Err....help? Por favor?" This was the wrong thing to say. He started in with me in Spanish like we were old amigos from Ecuador with shared fond memories of being weened on pablanos and fried rice. Oh hell no. I stopped him with, "That's all the Spanish I know."
He said, "okay. Okay!" and smiled and handed me a bag of little chillies. "Caliente!" he declared proudly. I said, "Um...gracias. Pero, no me gusta caliente." And I held my stomach and tried to convey to him with pantomime what would happen with caliente. His wife giggled. He took the bag back and handed me a bag of great big chillies. He said something that I told myself was along the lines of, "Ok, nice lady, here are some nice, mild chillies. Have a great day!" but was probably more like "Alright, you bland, unimaginative, gringo, here are your bland-ass chillies. I hope you choke on 'em." Given his wife's ensuing guffaws, I'm sure it was the latter. I digress. Here are the chillies:
I finally did find a jar of the chili garlic paste, over by the soy sauce. Here is what I found:
It was only $1.50 and I figured I could definitely use a back-up.
So I got home and started in making the dip, an ingredient of which was the chili garlic paste. First, I soaked the chillies in boiling water for half an hour:
While that was going on, I went to pummel the chicken. I don't have one of those...you know, the mallet things, so I improvised:
Just trust me, that's a half an inch. Boy, that was fun!
The chillies still had some time left for soaking, so I went on with the second ring of the circus: the caul-rice. This sounded kind of gross to me, because a caul is actually a...well, it's not pleasant, and there's no need to bring it up. Here, it's short for cauliflower-rice, which is basically chopping up some cauliflower in the food processor and then toasting in a wok. And so:
Easy.
The chillies were done soaking, so I drained the water into a separate bowl and cleaned the chillies. This basically meant taking off the stems, cleaning out the seeds, and rinsing off the chillies. This was boring and seemed to take forever. I'll cut to the chase:
I went from this:
to this:
to this chili/oil/garlic concoction:
So the paste was done. Now I needed to make the rest of the dipping sauce. That was easy, just throw some stuff in a bowl. Don't even have to cook it, just stir it up with a fork.
So, one ring down, one ring nearly finished, and one ring to go.
Instead of dipping the chicken into the bowl of marinade, I poured the marinade into the Ziploc baggie and shook it up. Then I heard a commotion outside and went to go see some drama! It was a false alarm. That extra time with the marinade probably did the chicken good, though. Right?
So I threw the first chicken breast in the pan, set the timer for five minutes, and went to start cleaning up the horrendous mess this meal had created. After a minute or two I went over and started messing with the chicken. I didn't want it to burn, so instead of letting it cook for five minutes on one side and then flipping it like the recipe said, I started flipping it and kept doing that for the next ten minutes, in between washing dishes.
That one seemed done, so I put in the next piece of chicken. As that was cooking, I started to toast the caul-rice. That was pretty boring. So I made a second dipping sauce with the pre-made chili garlic paste. That was a shitload easier, since it was just opening a jar instead of all that soaking and cleaning.
Anyway, the second piece of chicken was starting to look pretty well burnt, so I put it on a plate with some caul-rice.
I took both dipping sauces and tried each of 'em. The one with the home made chili paste was pretty damn bland. I didn't put any of the seeds in there, though, so that explains it. The dipping sauce with the pre-made paste had a lot more kick but the vinegar was way too strong.
The chicken was okay. I guess I don't understand chicken. I can't get it to cook right. My friend Ed said I should poke holes in it with a fork since I'm too cheap to buy one of those things that injects the flavor into the chicken. Maybe I'll try that next time. Or maybe I'll start making the kind of friends who go out and buy that shit for me.
In all, it took an hour and a half to prepare, half an hour to clean up, and it wasn't worth it. It had real potential, but only part of the chicken - the outer part, naturally - tasted like anything. It was good, but it wasn't worth the trouble.
The caul-rice was fucking awful. Maybe I didn't let it toast long enough, because every bite became a mouthful of caul-water. Nasty.
Next time I'll poke holes in the chicken, let it marinate overnight, and use cous-cous instead of caul-rice. Also, the email I got said to serve the dipping sauce on the side, but I think it would have been better on the chicken. I honestly think that in this instant glory world that we've created, there is probably a pre-made marinade for this. I'll keep an eye out for that for the next time. I mean, this didn't even taste like it involved lemons, and the whole point was that it was lemon chicken.
Whatevs. The kitchen is clean now and I'm heading to bed with a heart full of disappointment and a belly full of cous-juice. Whatever horrid dreams may come, I know I've brought them on myself.
My mom sent me an email from SavingDinner.com for lemon chicken. It looked pretty good.
I basically see cooking as a circus (those of you who have seen the mess I can make in a kitchen will see the sense in this), so I see components of a dish in rings. This dish was a three ring circus. First, I had to get the chicken together, then the dipping sauce, and then the bottom of the email (which came to my mom via FlyLady.com) mentioned at the bottom that I could throw some cauliflower in a food processor and then toast it up to serve with the chicken.
So, I start with the first ring. It was a dipping sauce that involved chili garlic paste. I was way too lazy to go find a store that sold that, so I found a recipe for it. I didn't write down what kind of chillies I needed for the recipe, I just wrote on the back of a piece of paper that some asshole had left on the floor (by the trash can) of the computer room at the hotel, "2-3 oz. chillies" and left it at that.
Well I got to the store, and there were all kinds of chillies. I usually shop at a tiny little grocery store across the street, but I needed some stuff that they don't carry so I was at a great big grocery store, and I had basically forgotten how big that place was. There were all kinds of dried chillies to choose from. After getting opposing information from around the country from the people I trust to know about chillies, I was about to give up.
Then a guy and his wife walked up to the chili display and started talking in rapid-fire Spanish. I decided to ask him which chillies are the mildest. I retained enough of my two semesters of Spanish to get out, "Pardone me, necissito chillies pero no me gusta caliente. Err....help? Por favor?" This was the wrong thing to say. He started in with me in Spanish like we were old amigos from Ecuador with shared fond memories of being weened on pablanos and fried rice. Oh hell no. I stopped him with, "That's all the Spanish I know."
He said, "okay. Okay!" and smiled and handed me a bag of little chillies. "Caliente!" he declared proudly. I said, "Um...gracias. Pero, no me gusta caliente." And I held my stomach and tried to convey to him with pantomime what would happen with caliente. His wife giggled. He took the bag back and handed me a bag of great big chillies. He said something that I told myself was along the lines of, "Ok, nice lady, here are some nice, mild chillies. Have a great day!" but was probably more like "Alright, you bland, unimaginative, gringo, here are your bland-ass chillies. I hope you choke on 'em." Given his wife's ensuing guffaws, I'm sure it was the latter. I digress. Here are the chillies:
I finally did find a jar of the chili garlic paste, over by the soy sauce. Here is what I found:
It was only $1.50 and I figured I could definitely use a back-up.
So I got home and started in making the dip, an ingredient of which was the chili garlic paste. First, I soaked the chillies in boiling water for half an hour:
While that was going on, I went to pummel the chicken. I don't have one of those...you know, the mallet things, so I improvised:
Just trust me, that's a half an inch. Boy, that was fun!
The chillies still had some time left for soaking, so I went on with the second ring of the circus: the caul-rice. This sounded kind of gross to me, because a caul is actually a...well, it's not pleasant, and there's no need to bring it up. Here, it's short for cauliflower-rice, which is basically chopping up some cauliflower in the food processor and then toasting in a wok. And so:
Easy.
The chillies were done soaking, so I drained the water into a separate bowl and cleaned the chillies. This basically meant taking off the stems, cleaning out the seeds, and rinsing off the chillies. This was boring and seemed to take forever. I'll cut to the chase:
I went from this:
to this:
to this chili/oil/garlic concoction:
So the paste was done. Now I needed to make the rest of the dipping sauce. That was easy, just throw some stuff in a bowl. Don't even have to cook it, just stir it up with a fork.
So, one ring down, one ring nearly finished, and one ring to go.
Instead of dipping the chicken into the bowl of marinade, I poured the marinade into the Ziploc baggie and shook it up. Then I heard a commotion outside and went to go see some drama! It was a false alarm. That extra time with the marinade probably did the chicken good, though. Right?
So I threw the first chicken breast in the pan, set the timer for five minutes, and went to start cleaning up the horrendous mess this meal had created. After a minute or two I went over and started messing with the chicken. I didn't want it to burn, so instead of letting it cook for five minutes on one side and then flipping it like the recipe said, I started flipping it and kept doing that for the next ten minutes, in between washing dishes.
That one seemed done, so I put in the next piece of chicken. As that was cooking, I started to toast the caul-rice. That was pretty boring. So I made a second dipping sauce with the pre-made chili garlic paste. That was a shitload easier, since it was just opening a jar instead of all that soaking and cleaning.
Anyway, the second piece of chicken was starting to look pretty well burnt, so I put it on a plate with some caul-rice.
I took both dipping sauces and tried each of 'em. The one with the home made chili paste was pretty damn bland. I didn't put any of the seeds in there, though, so that explains it. The dipping sauce with the pre-made paste had a lot more kick but the vinegar was way too strong.
The chicken was okay. I guess I don't understand chicken. I can't get it to cook right. My friend Ed said I should poke holes in it with a fork since I'm too cheap to buy one of those things that injects the flavor into the chicken. Maybe I'll try that next time. Or maybe I'll start making the kind of friends who go out and buy that shit for me.
In all, it took an hour and a half to prepare, half an hour to clean up, and it wasn't worth it. It had real potential, but only part of the chicken - the outer part, naturally - tasted like anything. It was good, but it wasn't worth the trouble.
The caul-rice was fucking awful. Maybe I didn't let it toast long enough, because every bite became a mouthful of caul-water. Nasty.
Next time I'll poke holes in the chicken, let it marinate overnight, and use cous-cous instead of caul-rice. Also, the email I got said to serve the dipping sauce on the side, but I think it would have been better on the chicken. I honestly think that in this instant glory world that we've created, there is probably a pre-made marinade for this. I'll keep an eye out for that for the next time. I mean, this didn't even taste like it involved lemons, and the whole point was that it was lemon chicken.
Whatevs. The kitchen is clean now and I'm heading to bed with a heart full of disappointment and a belly full of cous-juice. Whatever horrid dreams may come, I know I've brought them on myself.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Friday's Feast
Appetizer
Name something you would categorize as weird.
My family.
Soup
What color was the last piece of food you ate?
Multicolored: Jack's thin crust with pepperoni and sausage.
Salad
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how much do you enjoy being alone?
9.5
Main Course
Fill in the blank: I will _________ vote for ___________ in _______.
try to, the lesser of two evils, November.
Dessert
Describe your sleeping habits.
I like to sleep with my arm curled up under my pillow, which is why my shoulders are bothering me lately.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Friday's Feast
Appetizer
Name a color you find soothing.
When the sun has just dipped down over the horizon, leaving us to our own devices for the evening, and half the sky is a dark and mysterious blue and the other half is a lighter, more hopeful blue, there's a blue that binds them together. I guess it's closest Crayola name is Royal Blue. But it's more than just royal to me, more than the stuffy pomp and circumstance that that word intones. It's the color I think of when I hear "My Blue Heaven," the color I tried so hard to dye my hair when I was young and easy to please.
Royal, rambunctious, lovely blue. It's where my peace lives.
Soup
Using 20 or less words, describe your first driving experience.
Don't remember exactly, but I do remember my mom freaking out when I got the car up to 30 mph.
Salad
What material is your favorite item of clothing made out of?
Cotton. The commercials are cheesy but they don't lie.
Main Course
Who is a great singer or musician who, if they were to come to your town for a concert, you would spend the night outside waiting for tickets to see?
Paul Simon and Tom Waits.
Dessert
What is the most frequent letter of the alphabet in your whole name (first, middle, maiden, last, etc.)?
Erm, with my legal name it's A, but with any of my nicknames it's M.
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