Cooking Adventures

I was thinking of titling this blog post 'Culinary Adventures' but then decided against it since nothing I've done so far can be called 'culinary' in any sense of the word. I've cooked, yes. Not much more.

Also, of course, since I tend to write fiction, the days are not in any real order. Was the food real? Well, I ate it, so I ought to know.

For my mom. Because cooking is hard.

Day 1:
I try to make instant food. It's terrible and I never want to eat instant food ever again.

...Day 14:
I eat a Hot Pocket for the first time. Suddenly my freezer is up to its ears in Hot Pockets.(Pepperoni pizza. Yum.)

Day 3:
I adventure away, making some variation of paella, which in my case turns out to be chicken with rice and tomatoes. It tastes waaay better than it sounds.

...Day 26:
I am proficient at making(fake) paella, it being one of the few dishes I already have the ingredients for. *sigh*

Day 5:
I try to cook a chicken breast. Meanwhile, mashed potatoes, which are great :D

Day 6:
The mashed potato leftovers with bread make wonderful burger patties. They are a little too... buttery and creamy though.

Days 7-25-ish:
I can't be bothered. I eat out, order in, and have some more Hot Pockets.(Meatballs and mozzarella. Yum.)

Day 26:
I'm fed up of eating junk. I make(even more!) paella.

Day 27:
I stuff a chicken breast with bacon and cheese. And smoked ham. Maybe some more cheese. I eat my guilty feelings together with the chicken.

Day 28:
You can cook bacon in the microwave?!

Day 34:
Mm. Microwaved sausages. Easy to make: and best of all, can be grabbed from the microwave as you're running out the door in the morning, late.

Day 39:
I toss some pre-cooked cocktail shrimp in some pre-made cocktail sauce. Side of pasta--argh, the pasta's burning! Or... something! --one pasta-related emergency later, the dish is actually pretty decent.

So. As someone very aptly put it, we're not here to cook and eat food, we're here to survive, and I seem to be doing just that. And I know I sound weird and down about the whole cooking thing, but I actually kind of like it. It's fun, and I eat rather well(for those who are worried about me :) ), even if I do spend too much time in the kitchen.

Off to Washington(hopefully).

Journeys: Interlude

Justification.

I am the kind of girl who, raising a bottle of water to her mouth, ends up spilling it down the front of her shirt because it's less the concrete fact of the water hitting my throat and more the idea of it that quenches my thirst.

I dream a lot, introspect one night every week(right on schedule) and overthink everything. Nothing I do or have ever done is good enough for me.(Or for anyone else, for that matter) It feels good to write down these negative feelings, whether I post them or not. I usually do post them, because it liberates me: the words are not just my property anymore; on the tip of my tongue with my lips sealed tightly shut to prevent even the least bit of sound from escaping.

Why did I set such an arbitrary goal for my own life? Why did the people around me set other arbitrary goals for me? And why do I keep asking myself these questions, knowing that the answers are always going to be unknown to me?

None of this is what I truly want to say. Or maybe it is, and I just don't dare let myself pin it down with real, actual words.

Signing off, because it's late and I'm beginning to make myself sick with the sheer loneliness.

Journeys: Week One

In which I talk about buses. And food.

Journeys

Because why the hell not.

Date a girl who thinks too much

For nobody in particular, about nobody in particular.

~

You know the type. You'll find her hesitating in elevators and at doors, wondering whether to push or pull, maybe in a nice restaurant, wrinkling her forehead at the mind-boggling amount of choices on the menu. Don't sit down just yet: she might get freaked out. Smile at her from another table and then walk over, politely asking if you can have a seat. She might have a slight breakdown at this point, but you'll sit anyway. Help her choose what she thinks will be good: be prepared to do this a lot.

Date a girl who thinks too much, because she'll think about you a lot. She might obsess a little, but don't worry, it just shows that she cares. Date her because she'll be clingy and you'll feel needed, and also because you need someone who plans your birthday and anniversary and Valentine's day about four months in advance.

She might read more into every text that you send her, so be careful what you type and say. But once you get to know her well, she'll stop, and both of you can speculate about what other people mean instead.

There will be fights and arguments when she misunderstands you and is hurt, and won't listen to your explanations. There will be tears and recriminations, but it'll all be better once you've finally explained yourself. There may be more tears, as she tells you miserably what a horrible person she considers herself for not listening to you in the first place. This will, no doubt, soothe your stinging pride.

Ask her to marry you. She may not be sure about taking the plunge. She may even change her mind in the middle of your engagement; in fact, she'll do it several times, veering back and forth between ecstatic and doubtful. It'll leave you frustrated and insecure. Once she makes up her mind, however, she'll throw herself into the preparations with a determination that will astound the people around her. She'll want everything to be perfect: on your wedding day, she'll become miserable if everything's not just the way she imagined it, and you'll have to console her.

Date her, because if you have kids(this will require another long, long deliberation), they'll be the apples of her eye. She will worry about every little cough and sniffle, and will drive you up the wall with doctor's appointments and parent-teacher meetings. But your kids will get attached--maybe a little too attached, so that it'll be hard for them to live on their own when they grow up.

All of this may sound like a lot of work for relatively less joy, but isn't that what life is about? Relationships can't be perfect, and you'll find many examples of that as the years pass.

And finally, date her because when you realise that she's thought so much, about everything, your relationship and your lives, and also about you and chosen you to invest so much thought and effort in; you may come to find that you don't regret dating a girl who thinks too much at all.

A long-winded Confession.

I must admit something, and I must do it now.

I’ve been on a Diana Wynne Jones spree. 

It’s true. 

I’m slightly ashamed. And it’s not over yet.

It’s been so long, so long, since a book made me laugh or cry like a maniac (sometimes both at the same time). What can I say, when I’m bowled over like this? Absolutely nothing. But I can type a whole lot.

Let’s see. It started with:

1. Charmed Life: When I fell in love with Cat and hated Gwendolen and was thankful for Janet and didn’t know quite what to make of Christopher and Millie.

You know what, I happen to be wrong. I read another, but separately, and sometime before the fever really caught me properly. I suppose it won’t hurt to do what that old robot did in Asimov and create the Zeroth Law(or Zeroth book, I suppose):

0. Witch Week: This was Before Cat, of course, and I found the children in this book most unpleasant and Chrestomanci most odd. But I read it through, and the end gave me that feeling of exultation and pleasure that’s been missing in most of the books I’ve been reading intellectually recently.

Anyway, after Charmed Life there was no looking back for the Chrestomanci series. I managed to read in some sort of order:

2. The Lives of Christopher Chant: I want to write more about this book, but there’s this massive lump in my throat that prevents me from doing so. All I can say is, I got really attached to Christopher, and can’t believe Ms. Wynne Jones didn’t write any more about him-- I could cry when I realised--

3. Conrad’s Fate: had him playing a major role, at 15, and sort of different, but plugging in the gaps from the end of The Lives of Christopher Chant until we meet him again in Charmed Life. Oh, and at this time, I noticed something about Conrad. I’ll mention it later down the list, because I made a little detour to read--

4. The Magicians of Caprona: And there really wasn’t anything to say. This book would have been better off as a stand-alone, because while I enjoyed reading it, I never did get the point of my hanging around waiting for Christopher to appear/re-appear. But I did like Tonino a lot. And Benvenuto.(Wow, I got the cat’s name right. I haven’t been able to pronounce it yet.)

5. The Pinhoe Egg: This one really rounded off the set for me, wrapping up lots and lots of things neatly, even while introducing new, awesome characters like Marianne. Unfortunately, I feel somewhat that there was so much meshing of Cat and Janet and Marianne and Chrestomanci that the whole lovely brooding atmosphere of what-bad-thing-happens-next that was present in good quantities in Charmed Life and Christopher Chant, or even the amounts of worry at the characters and what would happen to them in Conrad’s Fate and The Magicians of Caprona was kind of off in this book. And here’s my note. ((Spoiler, spoiler)) Does anyone else think there are way too many downtrodden children doing all the work and getting their respective rewards in the form of adults who understand and take care of them at the end of the book? Marianne, Cat(although he’s just too obedient), Conrad, and, a little later in--

6. Dogsbody: Kathleen made me feel like crying, constantly and continuously. So did Sirius, honestly, because he’s such a nice guy dog star-thingy and doesn’t deserve all that trouble and (slight spoiler) that ending. But the book has me mystified for most of it, and crying for the next part. And oh, I just know Kathleen and Miss Smith are going to be alright.

7. Hexwood: For some reason, the way that Ms. Wynne Jones has knit together everything in this book, confusing temporality and making sure to blame the bannus, giving fantastic explanations for everything that was confusing in the beginning of the book and generally playing out a tale of revenge and poetic justice of epic proportions-- um, what was I saying again? Well, it bowled me completely over. It was just ...awesome.

8. Enchanted Glass: Did I mention the annoying way the characters in all these books have of clinging like limpets to your heart so even when the tale is nicely tied up in satin ribbon, you still want it to go on? You don’t mind even if the villain comes swooping back down a year or so later just so that they can go on having adventures and you can go on spying on them while they’re at it.

I must admit that after Andrew and Aidan I felt bold enough to go pick up--

9. Dark Lord of Derkholm: and I really gave up. I couldn’t actually finish, and I figured that there was just something that unsettled me about how human the griffins were. So I left it halfway, and I don’t plan to read its sequel in the near future.

Most recently, I read a book twice, going back to the start immediately after I finished it. This was:

10. Fire and Hemlock: Strangely, both novels ‘for older readers’, Hexwood and Fire and Hemlock made me feel slightly bored at the beginning, when I couldn’t exactly understand what was going on and why it was important: but then they both got really interesting in the middle. And alright, I thought I saw where this book was going when Polly writes that epic of hers at 14, but then I sort of didn’t, and then... and then... everything makes sense now? So, to clarify, I re-read the book because it was awesome and very, very cute and also because I couldn’t understand a word of the ending. The second reading helped me not one bit.

Polly is another one of those put-upon children, but frankly, she takes herself out of it and she does it quite well. I think she’s my favourite character now-- and when I say it, I have to somehow expand the space in my heart to fit in Christopher and Cat and Aidan and Andrew and Benvenuto and Polly and... alright, even Tom, I guess.

11. The Game: Enjoyable. Greek roots. Quite Good.

12. A Tale of Time City: Thoroughly enjoyable. Laughed at myself when I realised how badly I wanted Vivian to be the Time Lady and Jonathan to be her husband. Sad that it’s over now.

13. Wild Robert: A cute tale, but oh, how I wish for romance!(Even though it would just be creepy.)

Well. If you've read till here(which I doubt), know that I haven't, in fact, been screwing up my Mid-Semester exam just to read Diana Wynne Jones novels. I read them all about a week or so ago, and had this written up and decided to publish it on a whim.

Also, the bibliophile in me went *squeeeee* with the Chrestomanci series book covers, because they're awesome. I was lucky enough that the one paperback I picked up, Charmed Life, had one of those awesome covers and not the uncool, non-sparkly ones.

Also also, Enchanted Glass had the most awesome cover ever! No, really. You can see faces in the glass and everything.

Katze

Life is Stranger than Fiction...

…Because Fiction has to be convincing, and Life doesn't.               -Neil Gaiman

I hereby decide to write another post. Why? Because of all-consuming jealousy, of course. What better reason could there be?

I don't write on serious topics. I shun life-altering truths and other such things. If you ever went through my blog, you'd find very superficial topics; all relevant to me, me, me. And that's good enough, because I use the web to escape from realities, from the world that freaks me out: so much that I wonder if there's a place out there for me at all.

But recently my life online has begun to merge slowly(and not without pain) into my real life. Mostly because I've neglected one in favour of the other.

(That's probably how it should be.)

Real life is painful, but its joys are so much more than the joys of the mind. The full-body-thrumming feeling you get when something goes terribly, terribly right. When someone says something that means a lot, even if it's just a simple thank-you. When you've caused tears and you know they're happy ones. And there's other feelings- when it's early in the morning or the night air is biting at your nose and you hear your heart pounding in your ears as you take a deep breath; you're so happy to be alive.

Even sadness has some undefinable quality: like that feeling after you've had a good cry and you know nothing worse can happen to you. The hurt of words spoken in anger, cutting you to the bone and leaving your inner self exposed to the world.

It's, well, it's all real.

And that is what makes me close my laptop, against all odds, and go out into the big, bad world.

Katze

P.S. I'm beginning to feel like a poet.

P.P.S. Meanwhile, trying to study the reasons English is a world language. Apparently, it's got to do with the English going to almost every country in the world. *shrug*

Also struggling with matrix representations of the Schrödinger equation. Well-balanced workload FTW.