I’m back to work since vacations end. It seems I have a very busy week ahead of me. I’m still struggling with him being away. I know it’s just another day that I am stress. Tomorrow I’m going to be just fine. Long distance relationships are never easy but I know there’s nothing going to tear us apart. The thing is we already are apart and it seems nothing worse than that. I've cried a thousand times over things that I can't change--hoping that someday it will. But tears and emotional wouldn’t help much with my situation—instead it makes thing worse.
Sometimes it seems like my long distance relationship will remain long distance forever. Sometimes it doesn’t seem a bad idea. I’ve been on my own for so long now. I don’t know how it feels if we can get our life together. But then it feels so great when I hear him laugh and how I love to look into his beautiful eyes. And how it feels to be in his arms. I know how lucky I am to have him
There’s always a feeling of guilt, desperate that stays with me. Even we already have conversations and we agree we should be together! But it seems like these are not really helping me from not being sad. How many times I remind myself how lucky we are to each other, even we aren’t in the same place.
Fall is here and my food cravings have changed. No more fresh green salads and fruit sorbets- I want soups and stews and food that warms the bones. Mark Bittman has the perfect recipe. As a bonus, it makes good use of the sweet potatoes and peppers from our CSA box.
Here is my (slight) modification of the recipe.
4 medium sweet potatoes (about 1 1/2 pounds), peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 small red onion, chopped
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 minced fresh hot green chili pepper
1 clove garlic, peeled
Juice of 2 limes
2 cups cooked black beans
1 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Put sweet potatoes and onions on a large
baking sheet, drizzle with 1 tablespoons oil, toss to coat and spread
out in a single layer. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast until potatoes are
tender, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove.
Process chilies in a blender along with garlic, lime juice, cilantro, remaining olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.
Put warm vegetables in a large bowl with beans and bell pepper; toss with dressing. Serve warm or at room temperature.The salad was wonderful- bold and warm, with just enough heat to make my taste buds sing (but not yell). The cilantro-green chilli dressing gave it the welcome flavors of Indian sweet potato chaat- best eaten by the roadside.Try it, you won't be disappointed.
Just not here. I'm at another place now because Vox sucks. (Not it's users, you guys rock.) I hope to see you there. Update your RSS feeds accordingly.
Someday I hope the schoonerhelm brand is huge.
This pizza makes no claims to be the one from my favorite pizza joint. It is quite delicious on its own, though, and satisfies all my cravings for only 300 Cals. That's one fourth a large pizza, which runs close to 600 Cals for the thin-crust spinach-feta-caramelized onion-balsamic reduction pizza at Lola's.
Yeah, I'm a fancy pizza eater. I also like grape-gorgonzola pizzas. It is a source of deep and unremitting shame.
Ingredients:
1.5 cups all purpose white flour
1 cup soft white wheat bran (I just use regular bran. Cut back to 3/4th or 1/2 cup if the dough is too branny for you)
2.5 tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup warm water
1 cup tomato sauce (On weekdays, I cheat by using store-brought sauce and heating it on the stove until it reduces to three-fourths the original volume)
2 oz parmesan cheese
2 cups of your favorite toppings ( I used half a pound of broccoli and baby spinach each, sauteing them first)
Knead together the flour, bran, yeast, sugar and salt using enough water to make a soft dough. Start with 1/2 cup water and add more as needed. Knead the dough for five minutes, then let rise for an hour.
Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees. Roll the dough out into a large 14-inch pizza, then let rise again for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare your sauce/toppings.
Spread the sauce on the pizza, followed by 1 oz grated parmesan. Add the toppings, and the rest of the cheese on top. Bake for 12-15 minutes until the crust is crispy. Serve immediately.
Even though I'm officially off the diet, A and I like this pizza so much we make it at least once a week. The bran in the crust makes it chewy and sweet, and two slices make a large serving. Try replacing the bran with whole-wheat flour for a non-diet but still healthy version.
Perfect for the cold rainy-gray weather we've been having.
Adapted from this recipe.
Ingredients:
- 1 pound russet potatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 2 tbsp grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
- 1 tbsp tahini
- 1 tablespoons water
- 1 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- salt and pepper
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1/4 tsp sumac (optional)
- 3/4 pounds kale, stems and ribs discarded and leaves thinly sliced
Preheat oven to 450°F with rack in upper third.
Toss potatoes with oil, salt, pepper and paprika and spread evenly on a baking sheet. Roast for twenty minutes or until golden brown. Spread
cheese and kale on top of potatoes and roast for another couple of minutes until the kale is wilted.
Beat together tahini, water, lemon juice, minced garlic and sumac until smooth.
Toss kale and potatoes with tahini sauce and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.
Yesterday, my Facebook news feed was peppered with more sober messages than usual. An alumnus of my college, who I didn't know personally, passed away while working abroad in the Peace Corps.
His obituary (I shudder at how horrible it is to have an obituary when you are that young...) spoke of his many achievements, mainly of how had given his all to his work in the Peace Corps. Yet it was his Facebook page that broke my heart. Sorrowful messages from loving friends and family, one of them so simple. To paraphrase, it said, "I was going to ask you if you wanted to go get a drink when you get back. I don't know what to say...I'm going to miss you." There was a heart at the end, I think. Sometimes we feel more than can be expressed in words.
It's so incredibly shocking how in just a moment, a Facebook page can change from a digital representation of a person at a moment in time, to a memorial. Elements of that moment are preserved, and the page becomes something more.
People write on the page, and it grows. They write to heal. They write in hopes that the message will somehow be communicated to the person lost. They write to breathe just a bit of life back into what has been irreparably, suddenly, shockingly lost.
Obituaries and Facebook page memorials. I've seen it before, but I'm too young for this.
Doing something that reminds me way too much of my mother, today I read the obituaries of a few of my college's deceased young alumni. Accidents. Illness. The unspoken. Who is to say that any of us couldn't be next?
It got me thinking about what legacy I want to leave behind. I could die tomorrow, in theory. What would I wish I had done? How would I want to be remembered?
I would want to be remembered as someone who treated others well, who brought joy into people's lives, who loved her friends and family dearly. I would want to be remembered as someone who was bright and strove to use her talents to light up the world, so to speak. I would want to be remembered as a good person, or at least as someone who strove to be good.
I'm not quite there yet. I've joked in the past that maybe the fact that I'm so flawed is insurance against my early departure from this world - I've got a lot more evolution to do before God would be willing to take me. But maybe he would. I think we're not always meant to understand his logic - if would properly be called logic at all. How many times have we remarked that someone is gone too soon, that they were ripped from our grasp before they could live a full life, achieving their dreams on the way? It would be hubris at best for me to say I understand God's plan.
Here's where I think I'm going to start. A distant friend of mine put a quote from Drew Barrymore in her Facebook status message today: "When I lay my head on the pillow at night, I can say 'I was a decent person today.' That's when I feel beautiful." Drew Barrymore isn't exactly known for being an intellectual giant, but there is more than a grain of truth here. I'm going to start with consciously aiming to do the best I can each day, in hopes that each day becomes a brick in the wall of the legacy I'm creating, and the bricks build upon each other to become a sanctuary.
Legacy ultimately isn't about you at all. It's about what you leave behind, long after your name has vanished from the memory of every living person, long after your name has eroded from any plaques or buildings. Have you left behind something positive, uplifting, just, good? Somewhere it lives on, even if in a small way, perceptibly.
Take my grandfather, who I never met. His legacy has meant more to me than anyone's. You never know who your life is going to touch. That's the lovely, ephemeral, secret thing about this world. It's tragic and beautiful all at the same time that so much remains unspoken. I think this is why people like to think of heaven as a place where you are reunited with those you love, and can finally tell them how much they've meant to you, or how proud they've made you, or simply get that one more hour with them, and then some. I would never disparage that version of heaven. It's an incredibly pure desire.
No matter what, I think we'll always wish we had given our passing loved ones more. That's the other thing - I want to aim to let my friends and family know how much I care about them, even if it can't be imparted in words. There's something to be said for being coy, if you will, but it's so much worse to leave it unsaid.
In contracts (I hate to bring law school into this, sorry), we learned that a contract is valid only if it is evinced that there was a "meeting of the minds" - that is, if there is some evidence that the parties, to some extent, were on the same page. What is unspoken or perceived as implied cannot be evidence. I think it works this way with people, too, as much as we'd like to pretend it doesn't. We'd like to believe in the romantic notion that mystical meetings of the minds do take place, moments of synchronicity, when you both simultaneously just know the same thing. These moments are lovely, when and if they occur, but all too often they don't. We have to express more. We owe it to each other.
It would hurt my heart to know, on my deathbed, that I hadn't told a friend or parent how much I love them.
The last couple lines of Desiderata I know by heart. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
I'm aspiring to it. I hope this can be a tiny part of the legacy of those who have preceded me. We are all links in a chain, connected by years, happenstance, and common aims. I want to do well by them.
If you woke up one morning and realized you were all-powerful, what is the first thing you would do?
Submitted by loveless.I'd do a lot of healing.
But not sexual healing.
Well, probably not, anyway.
- Function: noun
- Etymology: Middle English heirlome, from heir + lome
- Date: 15th century
1 : a piece of property that descends to the heir as an inseparable part of an inheritance of real property
2 : something of special value handed on from one generation to another
3 : a horticultural variety that has survived for several generations usually due to the efforts of private individuals
The tabla is a popular Indian percussion instrument. The instrument consists of a pair of hand drums of contrasting sizes and timbres, tuned with ropes stretched across the drums.
At my wedding, my parents gifted me a miniature pair, hand crafted from heavy silver. They gave my sister a similar pair, and the drums are now a treasured family heirloom. After coming to the US, they were the first thing I sent for.
I use them to keep cardamom and fennel seeds on the table, as a time-honored after-dinner Indian tradition. Cardamom and fennel are used in India as mouth fresheners, much like the American chocolate mint. Fennel seeds may or may not be toasted, and are sometimes covered with pastel colored sugar coating. Cardamom seeds may be sweetened and painted with silver dust for a more elegant presentation.
The picture goes to Jugalbandi September, which is paired with the Monthly Mingle- theme heirloom.
*Updated on 10/18/09- I won it! The elusive Click Spectra- for best capture.
Since law school started, I've gotten - if it's even possible - even more into music than I was previously. I've been BUYING albums, for chrissakes. That's love.
Like my girl Gaga says, music isn't ever going to wake up and say it doesn't love me anymore. Music is eternal love. Unless you get tired of a given song, of course. Mmmbop comes to mind.
So, what have I fallen for? There have been a few loves of my sonic life lately...
Meet Zoot Woman. Electronic band with killer production. I found out about them via Adam Lambert's Twitter. Don't laugh, the man has amazing musical taste. And amazing everything else, except being straight...le sigh. This is one of my 2-3 favorite tracks from their newest release.
Next, my most recent love:
Also, my love for Frank came too late. He was in my city literally 2 days before I got his album! GAHHH. I guess I'll have to go to England to stalk him, which is just so much more inconvenient. I prefer my stalkees to be conveniently located, dammit.
I'd be remiss if I didn't include this lady as well, who I've been digging for a while:
I mean, sometimes you just might like a given person better were certain things the case, you know? Girlfriend tells it like it is - she's filthy and I love it. I grew to like her via her stuff with Spank Rock, who I also adore. How do you not love a girl who says, "I ride like Kelly Bundy, 'cause I keep that shit nasty"?
If I weren't being Lady Gaga for Halloween, I'd totally be Kelly Bundy. Just saying.
Completely off-topic: in a conversation with Mudkipz moments ago, we came up with a prospective title for a memoir: "Douches I Have Known: The Ashley S---- Story" That's a post for another day. Cheers, y'all.
