crap i'm a dufus

last night i missed a once-in-a-blue-moon ween show (a friend emailed me the setlist this morning and i almost cried because it was so explodafabulous) so that i could clean my apartment for my guests who are coming into town this weekend.

have i LOST my MIND? geesh. next thing i know i'll find myself saying "sorry, i'm busy watching my dog eat her kibbles" when someone tells me there's a secret pavement reunion show at the house next door. i've GOT to get my priorities in line.

all things go!

i just returned from a vacation to chicago and boy, i feel great. and not just because i got to catch up with some very dear girlfriends, or because i ate gobs of wonderful food, or because i had five full days to enjoy my boyfriend's company, or because our hotel had free beer in the lobby. i'm feeling great because of all those aspects of my trip and more. but mostly, i feel like i have been home (even though this was my first visit to chicago as an adult), soaking myself in wholesome midwestern culture. my own culture. the culture of kids like me who feel like they were raised in a sportsbar.

i wondered how midwestern chicago would seem to me, as it has very non-midwestern aspects such as public transportation and H&Ms and a beach. almost immediately after arriving, however, i was happy to feel myself tingle with that familiar feeling:

here you are, here you belong.

visiting chicago for me was the opposite of visiting a very foreign country. its midwesternness is almost intangible because it's such a big city. i mean, vince vaughn hangs out in a ritzy restaurant there: chicago is no stranger to glamour. but there's an air of appreciation of the simple things in life (like sports, beer, hotdogs, and popcorn) and the atmosphere feels uncomplicated, almost lackadaisical, and generous. at any rate, i had a lovely time and i'm looking forward to making chicago a usual stop in my lifelong tour of the world.

robin hood, prince of thieves

i love this movie. LOVE IT. i recently rented it and found myself rewinding scene after scene just to see it one more time. i also found myself scribbling down quotes as i watched. here are the highlights:

"You whine like a mule. You are still alive."

"Did you believe the charges?"
"Not even when they took my eyes."

"I will not rest until my father is avenged."

"Either we take our chances with the ghosts or become ghosts ourselves."

"Locksley, I'm going to cut your heart out with a spoon."
"Then it begins."

"Now sew. And keep the stitches small."

"Tell the sheriff for every harm he does to those people, I will visit it upon him tenfold."

"Just a minute. Robin Hood steals money from my pocket, forcing me to hurt the public... and they love him for it?"

"...and call off Christmas!"

"Do you yield?"
"I'd rather roast in hell."

"Well at least I didn't use a spoon."

"Do you mind, Locksley? We've just been married."

and my absolute favorite:

"What I want to know, brother, is are you going to stay with us, and finish what you've started?"

if you haven't seen this movie, you must. alan rickman gives the best villain performance of all time and kevin costner is watchable, i promise. bryan adams is far from prominent.

weekend of food!

i had a totally perfect food/drink weekend.

friday dinner: homemade pizza - refrigerated pizza dough topped with pizza sauce, mozzarella, chicken, sundried tomatoes, artichokes, feta cheese, and broccoli. pre-dinner drink- a couple shots of jameson irish whiskey.

saturday lunch: pho (vietnamese noodle soup) from Pho 75. i topped mine with siriachi sauce, lime, and fresh basil. to drink- cold vietnamese coffee with condensed milk

saturday dinner: hosted a small dinner party- we made corned beef and cabbage, potato pancakes, and irish soda bread. mint chococate brownies for dessert. to drink- irish car bombs, lime green miller lite, more jameson shots, and baileys.

sunday lunch: oh hangover taco bell burrito supreme! drink- moutain dew.

sunday early dinner: falafel and fries from Amsterdam Falafel Shop. i topped mine with purple cabbage, hummus, z sauce, and cucumber.

madness

i loved seeing duke lose last night! i was also happy for vandy! i'm currently in last place in my office pool! i have my jayhawk socks on!

KU's all in.

rock chalk jayhawk!

not only do i love this tournament, but my dad's (and mom's and grandparents' and aunts' and uncle's) college team (and the team i was raised to root for) is a number one seed. this past weekend, i watched the KU/K-State game (Big 12 tournament semifinals) with my dad in kansas city. this is a real treat, since he's probably the biggest KU fan in the world. he's such a fan that he very rarely is seen not wearing something with a jayhawk on it. even during the off-seasons. he's such a fan that you can barely talk to him during the game and if KU is up by 20 points with three minutes left, he's still not sure they'll win. his wife, my stepmother, is positive KU's lost the game at that point, insisting that it "smells like texas tech."

so this weekend they kept using the term "raining tres." have you heard of this term or did they make it up? whenever the other team starts hitting their three-pointers, my dad screams, "oh shit, they're raining tres on us!" at first, i thought he was saying that it was "raining trays" (like cafeteria trays), and i was totally confused. emma discovery cleared this up for me later. anyway, i think this is a kickass term and so i think we should all use it during the tourney.

also, if you are watching KU, when russell robinson scores, you can yell "new york new york," 'cause he's from central harlem. and keep brandon rush in your sights cause he's nice to look at, has a nice name, and is pretty damn good at basketball. finally, remember to "wave the wheat" when KU wins. (stand up with your arms in the air and wave your arms side to side slowly so you look like wheat).

warning- this is a heavy post for a bright thursday afternoon

the past remains. it is impossible to obliterate memories. one must actively recover from the past: covering it up with a layer of time changes no facts. this is good. it forces us to analyze why we did the things we did, how life has altered us, the purpose of making mistakes, and where to proceed knowing what we now know. i am glad for it. but the process makes me ill at ease.

today i am unwillingly processing some memories of my last relationship. basically, i thought that i had thrown away some photographs that reminded me of it, but they literally came back to me yesterday in the mail with a note "i found these in your old office." (my old coworker meant no harm. they were pictures of myself two birthdays ago). then, today i had lunch with a friend from atlanta and our conversation sent memories hurtling toward me like a great school of small fish. i am powerless to avoid the unwinding of this spool of thought so i will indulge it.

here are the thoughts as they unfurl:

i did that. i really did. it was me then. i erred, slipped, misplaced myself. i lost touch. i forced. i used. i did all the dishes. it went on too long. i forgot athens. i asked nothing. i felt safe in an unsafe place. i wanted security! but i absorbed abuse! it was me there! the girl who won the writing award and the citizenship award. uncherished. solid person melted. i cannot change it. i was. it's happened. so blind. it's done. dry.

but at the end of the spool:

all of our experiences are meaningful. it's especially our poor choices that make us who we are. i needed that relationship for so many reasons and its beginning, middle, and end has landed me, plink, where i am right now. it was relationship practice. and now i feel like i've gotten it exactly right.

another top ten

my top ten food/food or food/drink pairings/combinations

1 coffee and doughnuts
2 rare filet mignon and red wine
3 canned tuna, saltines, cream cheese, and tomato
4 apple and peanut butter
5 toasted sourdough bread and butter
6 diet coke and pretzels
7 velveeta and ro*tel
8 bleu cheese and ott's famous dressing
9 bacon, lettuce, and tomato
10 italian dressing and cucumbers

top ten ingredients

i often say that a particular food item is on my list of "top ten" favorite foods. and equally as often, i eat a bite of my dish at a restaurant and declare that it's the best food i've ever had. yes, i know that i tend to exaggerate about my favorite things, especially food. so i thought i would make a concrete list of top ten favorite foods at this moment in time, march 6, 2007 at 4:04 p.m., just so that i would know when i was officially eating one of my favorite foods. as i was composing my list, i realized that the topic was way too broad. there are so many different categories of favorite foods: favorite sandwiches, for example. then, you get into whether you want to list favorite generic sandwiches (grilled cheese with tomato) or sandwiches from particular places (chicken cuban sandwich from caliente cab). the lists that i could make up are practically limitless! so today's list is going to be top ten favorite ingredients. i thought i would start with an easy one. this means the food item must be an ingredient (peanut butter counts because in its purest form it is one ingredient and recipes can sometimes call for "peanut butter") and it should not be a food item associated with a particular brand or restaurant. okay, here goes. these are not in any particular order. or maybe they are.

my top ten ingredients of the moment

1 crunchy peanut butter
2 green olives
3 salt
4 shrimp
5 edamame
6 feta cheese
7 artichoke hearts
8 broccoli
9 flank steak
10 bananas

i'm going to go make a pizza topped with all ten ingredients!