i got about 4 hours of sleep last night, but it was my own damn fault. i thought that i might drive to columbus (OH) for winter warmup, which is a great contra dance weekend, and i have since to make it to a contra dance weekend in my graduate career, which is downright embarrassing. david and matece were already going this time so that was promising. and yet, alas, school won out again. i ended up having to schedule a pervasive computing meeting for this morning. we really needed the meeting, and i was glad to make progress because i was getting worried, so what can ya do.

i ended up able to fill another traditional committment this way, at least – the overnight at the uu church bazaar. they have a big art and stuff sale every year as a major fundraiser, and everyone feels better if someone is in the building with all those thousands of dollars of merchandise, so several young adults stay over and run around and make cookies and stuff.
how very wholesome of us, eh?
i got there around 10 or so, and katie and kelly and heather were there. we did this little candle lighting meditation thing that kelly thought up, and talked about how we thought we’d feel older by the time we got to be this age, and shared thoughts on how marriage does or doesn’t fit in to our developing senses of self. it ended up being a pretty honest talk with people i don’t really see that often, and that was nice, even though it probably sounds like sap as a retrospective.
so it goes.
to add more sap, i was a little amazed at how thoroughly transfixed we all were by the candles, and how well they contributed to the mood, despite the fact that i could also acknowledge that we looked like a freaking magazine insert with a title like “5 quick ways to find your center amidst the hustle and bustle of daily life”

what can i say, we humans are some pretty easily suckered machines.

(more…)

so yesterday at chipotle i talked to apurva a very little bit about his burrito in a bowl (or ‘bol’, if you want to be hip to the jive). erik had begun a discussion on the poorly mixed nature of the chipotle burrito, and various opinions were offered on the matter. in the meantime apurva was just happily munching away at his self-mixable pile of burrito innards, and it made me realize that i had never really thought about that as a feature of the put-it-in-a-bowl-and-call-it-hip movement. i pretty much just file it as a remnant of atkins mania, but when i stop and think about it, that doesn’t make that much sense when it comes to burritos because there’s a hella lot of rice in there…

whatever. i had to admit that i had started feeling curious, so i made a little note to myself to try it out next time to see if it’s worth any fuss.

i had forgotten about this entirely by today, but then i went to laughing planet for lunch, and as i hovered between the greek burrito (which i offer all forms of praises to the lp establishment for adding to the long-term menu), and nachos, which sounded fun and crunchy but not quite substantial enough, i happened to notice the put-it-in-a-bowl option (which they call ‘naked’), and i decided to try it out, with a half-order of chips on the side.

now, david says that i just like to mix all of my food together, so i’m sure that he is reading all of this with a bit of an “i know where this is going” gleam in his eye, but i must continue to insist that it is really not that simple. i did greatly enjoy the bowl-of-burrito, i must admit. i will consider ordering them again in the future. but not only is there a fundamental visceral and aesthetic difference between a steaming bowl full of rice, beans, spinach, feta, olives and tomatoes, and a foil-wrapped tortilla with the same stuff hidden inside, i also ended up using my chips to create something akin to the mcdlt of the nacho kingdom – chips here, salsa there, and a bowl of potential topping goodness over there.
so i mixed up one part of the meal, and separated out another.
messin’ with your mind, there, ain’t i?

however you slice it, it was a good lunch, and now i am happy and full.

i made a tasty dinner.

yesterday i bought some seasoned tofu at sahara mart to see what that’s like, and it’s pretty good, though i think next time i will go with plain ol’, plain ol’ and just add a few more spices myself if i want them. i stirfried the tofu with green beans and garlic in hot sesame oil, and added sesame seeds. it was very simple. i like experiences like that, particularly at the end of long days.
i never doubt that i love to cook, but i sometimes doubt that my love transfers over to busy times, and i am aspiring to remember that there are a lot of simple, quick, wholesome things that i can whip up in no time, and even have fun! david helps with this because of his almost untiring willingness to start cooking meals at 9pm, or pie at 11. it’s not like he’s Never too tired to cook, but his threshold seems much higher than the one that is wired into me for some reason, so i’m trying to develop a mantra of sorts that goes something like: “you like to cook. it doesn’t have to be fancy.”
and tonight it paid off!
woohoo!
i am also drinking one of my limited edition”high gravity” beers ( by new holland brewery) that i bought on an impulse at big red because i was compelled to read the rather witty beergeekery on the label, and then had to chuckle at the generageekery of the fact that the beer is named phi and brewed in accordance with the golden mean. how could it not be worth a try?!
i enjoy it quite genuinely, geekery aside, and it is an excellent complement to my slightly spicy meal.
hooray!

ftr, i predict that, if i’m not careful, the title of this post will be repeated quite often… in fact, i think that i will add a category of the same name, and i can just delete it later if i change my mind.
take that, self-conscious blog demons! hoho!

also ftr, i do not expect that every post of this category will include a picture, but it seemed a good chance to see how that works out.
(and a good test it was, too, bc first i got the directory wrong, and then it was hella big, so learning is my friend. ;)

cheers.