Cornbread and a Shell

Recently, I've been baking a lot of cornbread. Here is the recipe I like the best. It's an adaptation of the Silver Palate's recipe for "Crackling Corn Bread":

• Melted butter and oil for greasing the pan
• 1 cup stone-ground cornmeal
• 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 6 tbs unsalted butter (melted)
• 1 egg (lightly beaten)
• Around 1 cup of fresh corn kernels

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Grease a 9" metal (ideally cast iron) pan. 
2. Stir together dry ingredients. Then add wets.
3. Pre-heat the pan in the oven, then take it out and pour in the batter. It should sizzle. Then bake for around 25 minutes. 

I like this recipe because it's super dense and moist.

In other news:
I made my first website. It will hopefully be fully edited and we'll get a domain in not too long.
I found a Cher autograph in a $1 record of hers I bought.
Here is a shell I painted that had a bunch of other shells and creatures imprinted in it:

Gandalf and the Alien Attack

Dream Installment #9: Gandalf and the Alien Attack

I was traveling around with Gandalf through the countryside.  From afar we saw a battle between a bunch of gorillas and aliens, and we watched as hundreds of gorillas took back their woods from the aliens who had been burning it down for fuel. The aliens were slowly taking over earth, this was just one skirmish. We went over to the partially clear-cut and destroyed gorilla land where they were re-grouping. I was still scared for them because even though we could see the aliens running over to a different hill, they were only in retreat.  Who knew how long it would be before they would attack again and I didn't know if the gorillas could win a second time. 

As we walked around the turned-up land, we found a set of teeth crusted into the dirt. I didn't know if they were real or not, so I didn't want to touch them. Gandalf decided they were fake. 

Nearby we also found an X-ray of a foot that had little drawings on it and also was made so that some of the toes were stretchy. It was obviously a child's art project, but somehow it was also critical evidence in the discovery that humans had in fact been the ones to start the Alien War.  This was top secret, but Gandalf said that he had discovered it a while ago.  Still, this information was only now being released for public knowledge. Humans had started the war by bombing Mars 4000 years ago. Just little bombs, but it is what started the alien invasion.  

We headed back to my home, because I was worried about my mom. We got there and I was one of the little tiny children at the house, the size of a South Park character.*  There were a couple kids and a couple adults in the house. A man with a bald spot knocked on our door and told us that it wasn't safe on earth anymore, that the aliens would soon attack humans, and that we were being relocated to one of the nicer space colonies.  As he was talking to us he paused to answer a phone call.  When he did, his eyes turned from human eyes to alien eyes, which looked like giant yellowish cat/snake eyes.  When his eyes changed, so did all of the adults' eyes, as though they had been hypnotized.  That's when I knew that he was secretly an alien, that the offer to relocate us to a space colony was a trick, and that adults were easier to control then kids.  As soon as he got off the phone his disguise came back and the parents stopped being hypnotized. We had to tell them that Bald Man was secretly an alien, but it was tricky since he was still standing in the doorway.


(Ender's Game inspired? Lord of the Rings? Battlestar Galactica?)

* In the dream Escape and Disguise there were also characters that looked like South Park children.

Thank Yous

So, in the past four years (or, to be honest, my whole life) I have been terrible about sending thank you letters. Well, I haven't succeeded in sending any yet, but I've spent the last week making them.  I'm feeling very proud of them.  Here are a few:

Most of them are made from watercolored tissue paper, mod podge, and ink.  On the two with larger salmon I watercolored the salmon first. These don't really get the full texture, which is actually what I like best about them.  They are very textured.

Also, I'm reconsidering getting a salmon tattoo. I wanted to get one a couple years ago, just a little one some place discreet  Keep it stylized. Then when I told someone that, they got very negative and critical about fish tattoos in general. But now I'm reconsidering it. 

Repetitive Improvisation

Some improvisation I did over spring break:

Escape and Disguise

Dream Installment #8: Escape and Disguise

The dream (nightmare) starts with William and I going to an anti-war protest in Seattle. I was explaining my opposition to the war to David when I heard that they were rounding up people who were against the war and putting them in terrorist suspect camps.  When we got there they split up men and women and walked us through glass showers that were next to each other, leading into the camp. Before entering the camp they either whipped us or put a noose-like contraption around us to shock us. William went first, and I saw what happened to him. You could see people getting whipped through glass. I was in a small cell with my "family" (I think we were family by virtue of being in a cell together, not my actual family). We were all in cages and emaciated. 

We came up with an escape plan. We hid in an empty shower room and then hopped up onto a ledge and climbed into a vent. At this point, the group was myself, and two others (William was one of them but he'd kind of morphed into a different person). We kept avoiding getting caught. The original escape plan was to climb into a dog's intestines and then have the dog carry us out. 

--- flash of a commercial for a red pill that would make you invisible --- 

A brief period where the vent we were crawling through to escape was underwater (very scary). But mainly it was just really small and hard to climb through. We came out of the vent, but not out of the entire camp, just out of the worst enclosures. We hid in bedrooms while patrols of little girls that looked like they were in South Park walked back and forth. One caught us but we bribed her with a "carbon" sequined head band. 

We finally made it out into the city. we were walking around and we could hear news stories about escapes from the camp (us).  My family and I were all dressed in punk/slightly steampunk clothes to look less like we'd just escaped from a camp and then we picked up a fedora and decided that we should disguise ourselves by wearing preppy and fancy clothes. We were walking underneath the viaduct in Seattle when I saw Molly and Jimmy driving around in a car looking for us. They saw our punk clothes and Molly recognized me, and I knew they would come try to find us. But if anyone found us we would probably have to go back to the camps. 

We came across a little cafe/restaurant. I had  meal with a woman in there in Spanish. I showed her that my tights didn't fit and that I tucked the feet into my socks under my skirt. She gave me something that worked.  My partner convinced me to go back to the restaurant and ask if I could work there. The restaurant people wondered why I didn't want to have another baby before I started working. I said I wanted to have a job for a while again and get a routine before I had my second baby. It was hard to tell what parts I was lying about as a disguise and what parts of my story were real. It was a wonderful job. 

note: Most of this is directly copied from what I wrote down when I was half asleep/still in the dream. I completed some of the sentences, but the reason it's so long is because I was still mostly in the dream world and able to write down a lot of details.

Dream Fragments Part 1

I wanna say how I record my dreams: I've tried several methods. I've tried keeping a pen and a paper by the side of my bed and then taking time in the morning to try and remember them. I've tried telling other people. For example, this winter when I was home I had Maia come into my room before she left for school every morning to wake me up and ask me about my dreams. But she would forget them too by the time she came home. So, since I'm a faster typer than I am at handwriting, and I always fall asleep with my computer in my bed (watching 30 Rock), I just have a running draft in my email that is called "dreams" and it has fragmented bits of whatever I type when I'm half asleep. Whenever I'm lucid enough to open my computer and I remember my dreams I type whatever I can before I fall back asleep.  I think the fragments are sometimes the best, but generally for re-telling it's more intelligible if I complete the sentences and such. But, I don't plan on painting them all, so I thought I'd share a couple fragments (not to be analyzed too deeply please haha).

All in one night I had the dream about the man who said it would all go to hell, the dream about the raining rainbow pepper, and two others. They all took place in a setting kind of inspired by all the Downton Abby I was watching at the time, but it was generally much dirtier and involving the street market. All four are in my drafts, but here are the two fragments (unedited) that I haven't painted: 

"I was a servant in an english home and I was leaving to go on a trip and I barged into a room after no one answered my knocks, even though i knew someone was in there, because I'd forgotten my birth control and pocket book. I got in huge trouble with the snooty woman, who was having sex with her husband whom she hated. Then I talked back and she shouted for help and I yanked a lump of skin between the husband's legs and he helped in pain and then we joke about how weird and lumpy he was, but then she told me to run or i'd get sacked. I was running around the house trying to avoid the mom, and then she caught me and walked me around the house and garden, making me tell her how beautiful it was. Then I climbed out the window and as I was walking down the street I decided i really wanted to drive, but i had no car. I ran into a friendly woman who asked me if i would like to come for dinner. i said yes. I saw a fat baby by the side of the road and went to play with it, then i thought it was giving me flees. I wanted to take it with us, b/c who leaves a baby by the side of the road, but the parents came back right as we were leaving."

and 

"bad talking other butler and little sister the size of a baby and we were overheard"

I have more fragments I'll post later... lots of them are quite funny, also embarrassing  but I think these ones are interesting because that night was so fruitful with dreams, but also there was a certain consistency to them.

False/Start/Fall/Tart

Just a little series of word arrangements my mom and I thought were amusing last summer.

I don't owe you anything!

For some reason I've had the image of myself sitting across the table from myself shouting "I don't don't owe you anything!" back and forth stuck in my head... And I find it really funny. I don't know why, but I just think it's hysterical.

Jellyfish/Snakes -- 3 Stories

Dream Installment #7: Jellyfish/Snakes -- 3 Stories

This dream was particularly strange because it felt so much like a series of movie shorts. Three movie shorts to be exact. In all three I was in the same one room wooden house. And I was a character from the Israeli movie "Jellyfish":

"Jellyfish" is set in Tel Aviv and the woman who I was in my dream played a caretaker. I watched that movie back-to-back with "Tiny Furniture". Both movies, particularly in conjunction in one another, left me feeling a bit existential and unsatisfied.

As this woman, in a rickety old wooden house I led three lives. In the first, the room was beautifully well-kept and decorated. It was my younger sister's wedding (not Maia, just a fictional younger sister of the dream.) I was laying on mattress on the floor with my mom, watching her twirl in a beautiful wedding gown, but all she could do was complain about all the work she had to do. My mom and I weren't having any of it.

The second life was in the same room, but the walls were unfinished wood, and the whole house felt old and flimsy. I was scrubbing a toilet in the middle of the room for a long time.

In the third life, the same room had been painted so that it was suitable as a school house. The room flooded so we all went outside.

I decided that since the room was flooded we should all just go outside and I'd teach everyone an Afro-Brazilian dance I'd learned. Then we looked down and the shallow water was filled with snakes.

I woke up with spider paranoia.

Riding the Hammock Subway

Dream Installment #6: Riding on the Hammock Subway

This dream and painting are from summer-- I just haven't taken the time to scan and post it.

As I walked out of the hostel I was staying at in NYC, I saw two Reed graduates whom I'd known as a freshman and found very intimidating. They were walking towards the subway and I could overhear them talking about Reedies I knew. I caught up with them and asked what train I should get on to go to a good shopping neighborhood. They rudely directed me onto the wrong train and I foolishly followed their advice.

The car I'd gotten onto was packed. I had to sit on the back of some dude's chair, which for some reason he was fine with. Slowly, about half the car emptied and everyone left looked haggard. I knew what those expressions meant-- they were commuters just like I'd been in high school. Just instead of a ferry and bus ride, they were stuck on the long train ride home. "So, there's nowhere fun to go shopping out here, right? We're outside of New York now, huh." I asked. "Yeah, you should definitely get off at the next stop," someone replied.

So I did. A very unusual stop.

I had to walk carefully along the edge of the track to the "train" waiting for me. School children getting off of it easily walked passed me, while I clung to the guide rope. "Just tangle yourself so you don't fall in! It's the only way back to NYC!" they informed me. As I imitated the commuters around me, wrapping myself into the net, all the random junk I always carry around in my pockets and purse fell into the river below me.

On the bright side, I managed to save my wallet, and when I got used to the terrifying movement of the hammock over the river, I found it to be a very beautiful ride back towards the city.

The Big Country

I'm getting very excited to go back to Portland. Living on Vashon is definitely fun, but also a very mellow, and I feel like I'm at a retreat every day. I'm excited to drive down to Portland with my mom and sister. And I'm excited to return to my normal level of over-stimulation. And as soon I get there, I'm sure I'll miss the peace, quite, and carefree island life.

Here are a list of my favorite names (taken from my sticky notes):

Ida/ Ioda       Titus

Diderot          Xerxes

Appoline

Agamemnon    Tempelton

Pascal            Pluto

Lolita             Cosmo

Quentin          Hidlegard   

Basil              

Desmond

Fanny/ Ernest

My parents would have named me Cosmo if I'd been born a boy.

I've still been dreaming a lot. But the images are less exciting visually. Like, the other night it was just a dream where I was serving beer at the Red Bike to D Ku and Jensen, and I'd just had a baby and I was carrying it around but dropping stuff all the time... very weird.

Or I had one where I went to Santi's Bar Mitzvah.
Or where William and I were in a dance concert together. I might paint that one though, so I'll save it.

I love Vashon, but I'm excited to get back to the land of irritating college students.

Raining Rainbow Pepper

Dream Installment #5: The Raining Rainbow Pepper

The same night I dreamt about the conspiracy theorist, I had a dream in which I was a young boy, probably 8 or 9, showing my bride-to-be the ways of the world. We were living in the same run down part of the city that all my dreams took place in that night, and our house was just a rickety structure built off of the street over a huge canyon. I climbed out onto a piece of scaffolding with her, to look out over the beautiful view.  I wasn't scared of the drop, but she was. Above us floated a huge bell pepper.

We sat there, watching the giant pepper as it changed from being completely green, to being a bluish- purple, and then to red. As it changed, powdery liquid color dripped onto us. "You see, it's real color is red," I explained to my fiancée. As soon as it turned red, the green powder magnetically flew to it out of the air, coating it again.

As we climbed back into the house, my fiancée  slipped and almost fell. I tried to save her, but almost made her loose her grip because I got distracted looking at the sunset. Finally we both got back into the house, but she was mad at how careless I'd been, and I realized how badly she needed to eat.

Being Eaten by a Giant Squid: An Instructional Video

Dream Installment #4-- Being Eaten by a Giant Squid

This dream had several parts to it. On one hand, I was indeed being eaten by a squid, on the other, I was watching myself be eaten as a part of an instructional video on how to escape the belly of the beast.

Generally, I would hear or see a part of the instructional video, then relive the same event less successfully or with different obstacles. This is Part 1: Entering the Belly of the Beast.

Toy Story 4

Dream Installment #3: Toy Story 4

The house is flooding! I, a rubber bouncy ball, headed up to the attic through the decorative octagonal window at the top of the house to save the trapped toys. The flood waters were rushing from all directions bellow me as I balanced on some scaffolding to look down on all my friends bellow. "Don't forget to save my cowboy hat," Alex shouted up at me! All of the "zen" toys, the stress balls and meditation themed mellow toys had been put into storage and I fought the flood waters to get through the attic door where they were boxed up.  What I discovered when I arrived, was surprising and sad: the toys of the attic had gone cannibalistic and were eating each other. The only toys that made it out with me back to the window were two tennis balls. They wore long black coats with red trim to indicate their belonging to the cannibalistic cult. 

When we got back to the window, we realized the only way down was to jump. "Just dive," shouted the toys below, so I did. I plunged into the two foot deep floodwaters below and hit the ground with a thud. "I'm just not bouncy enough to dive in this shallow of water." I thought to myself. I looked down to see that I'd scraped my elbows. 


The tennis balls jumped after me, bouncing off the ground and soaring high into the air, looking over the roof of the house. While they bounced, I warned the other toys of their cannibalism. We all ordered pho to celebrate our escape and to satiate the hunger of the tennis balls. 

In James Franco's Car

Dream Installment #2: In James Franco's Car

I'm back at dance rehearsal in the Vashon Island High School Theatre.  My dad and our family friend Doh swing by and we start walking down the highway in search of mushrooms and booze. As we walk down the road in the hot sun, a small, rickety, clown-like car pulls up with James Franco in the driver's seat. "Hey, do you guys wanna ride?" Somehow we all pile in, Dad and Doh in the back seat, myself and some cute boy sitting on my lap in shotgun. "Hey, I'm headed down to Portland to get some good weed. Is that chill?" asks Franco. My Dad and Doh are already lighting up in the back seat, and despite my requests to get back to dance rehearsal, we're on our way to Portland.

After a couple seconds in the car, we're all drunk and high. Without warning, the boy in my lap opens the door and begins to vomit. Rubbing his back as he pukes, I whisper sweet, comforting nothings into his ear. He sits back up and I hug him close. The door shuts. "That was really impressive. You didn't get any vomit on the car. Good Job." I say. James Franco turns to me, furious, "How could you puke in my car? You couldn't even tell me to pull over?" he yells. "No sorry, that was me," says the cute boy on my lap. He saved my from the wrath of James Franco.

After a while of driving, we arrive at a truck stop. A woman comes out from the camping shelter, sees the car and begins to yell at James Franco. "How could you just leave me in charge of this stupid, ramshackle shit hole of a truck stop?! James, you think I give a shit about your truck stop? And you brought friends? I hope you guys don't trust him. He's a piece of shit boss!" We see her room, a beautifully sparse meditative room. Then we all pile back in the car, Franco's friend too, and head back to Vashon.

Spreading Malcontent

I've been having at least one vivid dream a night recently, which I've been recording in a long email draft to myself. I'm also trying to work on an insert for Rebecca's zine. So, I decided to combine those two projects. Here's the first attempt:

The other night, coming out of a series of dreams which took place in the dirty streets of a cobble-stoned city, I became a conspiracy theorist. I was a haggard young man, staking out a popular passageway of the marketplace.
"Soon, it'll all go to hell," I warned! "There won't be democracies, or capitalism. Ha! No, you want representation? You want food? You want medicine or education?! Well, everything will be black market! Thats right!! Ha! The black market will supersede all other powers, governments, and institutions. It won't be pretty, no, it won't be pretty!" Leaning over, hoisting a huge basket of rice onto my back, I waved one hand wildly and trudged back and forth, demonstrating the weight, the burden we would all carry for powers that be in the black market.

I was also the the little boy that watched the fool spewing nonsense about the black market. I just rolled my eyes.

In other news:
I've continued to cook a lot. I've made:
-Fennel Ice Cream; recipe courtesy of Jen's fabulous food blog! I think I would cut the sugar just a tad so my mom would want to eat it (she's sensitive to sugar), but my dad and I have serious sweet teeth, so we were happy as clams!
-Rustic Deep Dish Apple Pie-- not my best pie, but I was trying a weird Joy of Cooking recipe
-Fetta Herb Stuffed Homemade Pasta with a fried tomato topping. I've made this twice now. The first time the stuffing was too salty, so I cut the feta with more cream cheese and sour cream the second time. My sister agreed with me and said it was much improved. I also learned the first time that it's important to seed tomatoes if you want to cook them so they keep their shape and not have them turn into a sauce.
-Onion Mushroom Garlic Hamburgers for Maia and Dad
-Cheesy Rice with Egg whites and Greens (AKA everything we have laying around...)
-Baked Salmon Four Ways
     -Black bean, mushroom, and green onion topping
     -Orange, lemon, rosemary, and white onion topping (w/ salt, pepper, and butter)
     -Lemon, green onion, and white onion topping (w/ salt, pepper, and butter)
     -White onions, green onions, oregano, and mushrooms topping (w/ salt, pepper, and butter)

Home Sweet Home

I've left the Giant Peach for good.

I'm bored at home.

I've gone on some runs. (Two, to be precise.)
Both of them for 2.5 miles. The first one took 30minutes. The next day I went for the second run, but half way through I got a terrible stomach ache and I walked the rest of the way home. That said, the first half of the run went really quickly and I think it would have been an improvement from the previous day, so in total I only took 45minutes. Now, to some this may seem like a long time for a 2.5 mile walk/run. I was extremely proud. Here is selection of my post-run photos after my first run:

update: My physical therapist has told me not to run again. Otherwise I'll throw out my back again.

Please note my squirt t-shirt. My dad saw it and went, "Did you steal that from me? Because, Squirt is my favorite soda. I want a Squirt t-shirt!" I laughed. I felt kind of self conscious wearing it around Vashon. Anyway, I hope you can sense my pride and intense feeling of accomplishment. I celebrated by eating a bowl of creme brulee with Maia that we'd made the day before. Speaking of which, I've become a master chef:

Chicken Sausage Noodle casserole
Cilantro Pesto Feta Pasta Fry
Fresh Garden Salad
Udon Noodles with Spicy Curry and Black Bean Broth (I actually hated this, but my dad liked it... so, at your own risk, really)
Creme Brulee
Mago Lime Sorbet
Crepes with Jam (I actually haven't made the crepe batter or the jam recently, but my dad makes the batter, I fry it and put jam in it. I recommend it, but I can't really give any more instruction than that.)
Garden Burrito with Tofu (this is a fancy name I've given to a burrito with no bean and whatever is in the fridge and some lettuce from the garden...)
Simple Bruschetta
Simone's Famous French Toast!!! (haha)

Maybe future blog posts will hold more exciting news (like pictures from dance concerts!) but these days my life has been filled with contemplative cleaning and song writing about feelings towards lemon creme pies and my incredible twerking skills.



So, that's a fun vid i found of myself. I was showing off my sick outfit.

These Days

---I'm taking my Qual this week. It's rough, but in a little way, exciting. But mostly rough. Here's a note I wrote to myself in my planner tonight. The last part is especially important.

Also, I often have nicer hand writing.

I saw this picture recently. I made a whole new folder in my bookmarks menu for it. The folder is called "Important Thoughts". The 'important' thought I had when I saw this was that I wanted to go there- as long as there was heating or a wood stove. It might be lonely, but I think I'd enjoy it. In fact, I have a whole daily routine imagined there, all by myself. (I also have a whole romantic version where it's just me and the love of my life... probably preferable to the first version, but not as relatable.)

My mom asked me recently if I feel lonely sometimes. I said yes. But I also said that, unlike earlier this semester, I don't really think feeling lonely always means I feel sad. I was lonely sometimes this summer when I was in DC or with Dora. It's not because I wasn't around people, or couldn't call home, but because I felt almost completely self directed. I had to process all my own thoughts and feelings. Even with Dora, with whom I spent almost all my time in New York, I wasn't always able to share my thoughts, because they wouldn't have been well received. I journaled and I painted instead. Being alone meant I had to make my own entertainment too, because I didn't have TV or movies, or the internet. So I read books and I fell right back into my fantasy world- the one I used to get into when reading gory fantasy books in middle school. I had to be with myself and enjoy my own company, and I learned a lot that way, and I made quite a few revelations about what my goals and values are.

I spend a lot of time doing my own thing these days. Sometimes I like it, sometimes it makes me sad, but usually I don't have the time to think about it. Like right now, during the qual- I just feel like I have to improve my level of day-to-day functioning so that I stay healthy and complete the task at hand. But I'm looking forward to a day of giggling and shopping and indulgent food (and maybe my crush will wanna hang out or something).

Anyway, sorry for the diary entry. Here's my favorite gif. of all time (I was going to save it for a post about my best and worst bookmarks, but I don't see any harm in posting it twice):

Ode to Bridget Jones

Now, some of you might think that this is just in response to the fact that I'm now single and Bridget Jones's Diary is the ultimate single woman's chick flick and that I'm over identifying with her and all. Well, you're wrong. Because I always love this movie, and I always identify with her. So, this post is simply an ode to my favorite female chick flick protagonist.




my favorite part of that one was "oy! oy!"

and of course (this is the best quality i can get with embedded video... ):


and



and... my favorite scene from Return of the King:
sorry for the personal blurb at the beginning, I have a hard time avoiding it.

At long last.....

So, for those dweebs (i.e. 2/3 of my readership) who think that they're too good for facebook, here's a small sample of what could otherwise be found in a much more expansive album. Here, William, are the Renn Fayre pictures you've begged me for for the last 8 months.... sorry about the delay! Love, you and Merry Belated Christmas!! p.s. loved your Christmas mass email! I showed it to my whole family- it was a hit!

p.p.s (to those who have scrolled this far), is anyone else freaked out about the new facebook layout? It's trying to be blogspot #amiright?