His game is called survivin'

Today was a Clash kind of day.

It started as a Carrie Underwood kind of day, but my work wasn't getting done and clearly she was to blame.

The iPod: the only place where The Clash and Carrie Underwood can live in harmony.

I'm going to start carrying my own apple juice

An ad for Starbucks I saw in a metro station. I have a "blankie;" Starbucks is nothing like a blankie. I've lost track of how many times I've gone into one this fall for a caramel apple cider, only to be told they don't have any apple juice. My blankie never lets me down like that. Shame on you, Starbucks, you are no blankie.

(This post brought to you by Bonnie's fatigue, bitterness, and lack of caramel goodness.)

Oh, baby brother

I routinely start posts and never finish them. Thus I have about 20 posts in drafts that I keep around because I'm a pack rat. This is from when Joey visited in September. The kid can make me laugh like no one else.

[on my walking speed]
Joey: You walk like a cyclops!
Me: Um...cyclops aren't exactly known for walking fast. I think they're just known for having one eye.
Joey: No, they are known for their speed, too.

I started to argue that if they only have one eye and walk so fast, they'd probably run into things a lot. Then I remembered that I run into things a lot. Maybe the kid has a point...

Most Over-Used Words

Words to strike from my vocabulary:

• random
  
• sketchy
  
• totally
  
• so
  
• seriously
  
• awesome
  
• creepy
  
• super cool
  

It looks like entries in a book titled How to Speak Like a 13-year-old Girl, doesn't it? Except, I didn't start using any of these words until college. And of course this is made all the more sad by the fact that I'm a writer. I love words!

I'm posting this because starting last week I am working on removing these from my brain, one painfully idiotic but expressive word at a time.

Friday Soapbox

I tried to keep it in but I have to get it off my chest. If I lose readers then that's ok, sorry.
I love the fact that we live in a country where we are free to protest. My biggest regret about college is that in four years at one of the most politically-conscious colleges in the country, I didn't attend a single protest. Bu the protest yesterday at the Capitol, and the many in the past few months, have just got me thinking.

The media coverage has been focused on those against the health care debates and proposals, against the so-called "socialized" medicine. They deserve to have their voices heard, but they aren't the only voices. And that's what bugs me the most, about some of their signs and messages, some of them acting like they speak for everyone. Some people want this! Please quit making it out to be Congress steamrolling the electorate. Some people have fought for this, voted for exactly this!

And "tea parties" where they claim they have no representation? They have representation, they just don't like what their reps are doing. (The only people who can legitimately claim no representation, are D.C. residents. And I thought that long before I became a resident and will continue to think so after.) The same people crying "hands off my health care," are probably the same ones who would shout down someone with a pro-choice "hands off my body" rally-cry. (Of course, I want government hands off my body but on my health care, so maybe I'm a hypocrite, too.)

This is what I voted for last November, so I'm happy. But I do need to try to remember how miserable I was for 8 years, and that a good portion of the country is feeling the same way now. (Of course I'd be a lot more patient and tolerant if people would stop saying the President is Hitler, the Joker, a Kenyan national, and a Grandma-killer.)

And while living a mile from the Capitol has made me less tolerant of protesters, particularly when they're exercising the First Amendment in the middle of a workweek, I still appreciate living in a country where it's at least an option. Where it's a guaranteed right in the pocket Constitutions they were waving around yesterday. Though I don't remember them doing so when freedoms were trampled on with the Patriot Act. Just another difference of opinions and perspective, I guess.

Happiness is...

It's the little things, people. And if I keep googling things more often than usual just so I can look at his wonky eyes, then, oh well. Yesterday was Big Bird, I just hope tomorrow is Grover, my favorite.

It's that time of year again...

...when I complain and moan and groan about how COLD it is. When I pine for the sweltering days I bitched about in the summer. When I wonder why I moved further north when the winters in NC were plenty harsh enough for me. When I accept begrudgingly admit that for the next six months I will be COLD all. the. time. When I drink around six cups of tea a day and twitch constantly as a result. (I've heard a rumor there's something called decaf, but I haven't looked into it.) When if I'm outside for more than two minutes without a hat my ears feel like they're bleeding and my nose runs all day. When I try to invent a way to have a space heater permanently attached to my person.

Yes, it's barely a month into fall. Yes, the high is nearly 60 today. Yes, I'm a pansy. But I'm COLD.

NaBloPoMo

I was reminded in an article yesterday that November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). From their web site:
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30...Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

I'd love to be inspired enough to write a novel in a month. Even a crappy one. However, seeing as how I've been working on a "novel" for the past seven years, I'm not so sure how good of a NaNoWriMo-er I'd be. (Besides, I much prefer re-writing the first two pages over and over again.)

Also, "lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly." What do those words even mean? No, really, there's a reason this blog is called "Learning to Fly — it's because I don't. I plan, I agonize, I complain. (I've considered changing the title to "Kicking and Screaming into Adulthood.")

However, since this is the Internet and there's always something being made up, November is also National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo). A much more manageable goal for the commitment-phobe in me of writing one measly and mundane blog post a day for a month. (In light of how I posted every day last year, this shouldn't be a problem. Of course, if you followed my blog at all last year, you know I tended to post once a week, seven posts at a time.)

So here I go. Work is about to get crazy and I need something else to keep it from consuming me. Plus, nablopomo is fun to say. Or at least it was until Doctor Who invaded my brain, as it is apt to do, and now I can't get this out of my head:

Repeat after me: I never said I was normal.

After the flood all the colors came out

The past few weeks have seen a succession of gray, windy, dreary, chilly days. Saturday was a nice change, at least somewhat, in that it was still gray, but rather warm and pleasant outside. Thus I set out to capture some of fall's colors.

Coming from eastern North Carolina, we don't really have trees that change colors. We don't really have the trees that ignite in reds, oranges, and yellows. Our pine trees are regal, but they just coat the ground with their crunchy brown needles. Other trees also tend to just drop their dead leaves everywhere, though sometimes it seems like the leaves just dissappear entirely. (We do, however, have magnificent Bradford pear trees in the spring.)

Because of this, I still find changing leaves a novelty. I'm almost childike when encountering a tree blazing red or orange, that just last week was green and lush; I become entranced. So on Saturday I walked around town until my feet cried and my camera whined, capturing all the colors while they last.

Pictures are uploaded to my Flickr. They aren't amazing or anything, it was just too gray outside and I'm not sure I have the color settings on my camera right.

Slow Cooker Sunday

Last year, for my birthday, my parents got me a Crock Pot:


It would be correct to say I was less than thrilled. However, never wanting to show anything but gratitude for a gift, I hope, and the fact that it was red, and I love when kitchen items are pretty colors, I kept it. (And I'm pretty sure Daddy picked out the red.)

Mom said it would be so easy to just throw a few things in in the morning, leave it all day, and then come home to a meal. Let's see about that...

So easy
I have to admit, compared to my other forays into cooking, it has been rather easy. And I've grown quite fond of the little contraption and the goodness it has brought me. I tend to make a lot of appetizer-type foods, which are my favorite type of food, as well as some soups and stews. It's really just good for someone like me, of the "never preheat-cook everything on 450-burn is just a variation on well done-what the hell is mince" school of cooking, to put everything in at once and leave.

Throw a few things in
Except, I'm really not the type who can just "throw" something together - whether it be ingredients, an outfit, or an assignment. All my meals require scouring for a recipe, making a detailed grocery list, and then making 15 laps of the grocery store trying to get everything I need.

Even then I still have trouble, since this is me. I made a chipotle chicken stew for the brother last month that miraculously came together despite my not knowing the real difference between chicken breasts and thighs. (I came uncomfortably close to asking the guy beside me at Safeway the difference between breasts and thighs. I then imagined how that would sound, the kinds of answers I would receive, and laughed to myself.)

Leave it all day
The idea of leaving an appliance on in my rented apartment for 10+ hours while I'm away, terrifies me. I'm just not sure my renter's insurance covers death by slow cooker. Thus I tend to make my meals on Sundays and eat off them all week. Coming home to leftovers on Monday is less nice than sitting down to a freshly-cooked meal on Sunday, but it's certainly better than chicken nuggets and french fries for the 9,000th time.

Come home to a meal
As has been made clear here: I hate to cook and I'm not good at it. I especially hate paying for food, going through all the effort and money to cook for one person, and maybe not like it but still eat it for a week. So all in all the little crock pot that could, and the handy box o' recipes the parents also gave me, has been perfect. (And, no, I'm not the only one who eats what I make. Others have tried things as well and they've yet to stop being my friend, or die.)

Tonite's meal is Brown Sugar Chicken, my first attempt at just "throwing" whole pieces of chicken in and letting it do its thing.


However, lest ye think the slow cooker has cured all my cooking calamities, it has not. I had trouble with the meat part since I didn't know if my three pieces of chicken were equal to the six half-pieces called for in the recipe. I decided there was a 75% chance it was, and stopped halving the recipe, which was good since I forgot I was halving, and at one point had to scrape off some brown sugar and black pepper. I also, as you can tell from the picture, couldn't quite manage the "chop and smash" of garlic, either. But this is all still an improvement from last month when I tried to weigh chicken using the bathroom scale.

I'm sure everyone's just dying to eat at my place now, right?


The finished product. Really tender and juicy and it fell right off the metaphorical bone. (It was boneless chicken, I'm not sure what the correct phrasing is here.) I don't think I'll mind eating this all week.