Exciting News Part Deux

Thanks to the dual wonders of facebook and iphoto, I am able to post pictures of my new hair. Now behold...

Before....


...and after.

You're welcome.

Exciting News

While the world goes to hell-Wall St. collapsing and all that- I have some news of serious value. Yes, Dear Readers, I have chopped off my hair. It is super short (for me, so not that short) and I think I like it. However, I have yet to attempt to style it myself so the jury is still out. Unfortunately for you, I'm sick and therefore too lazy to find my camera cord, so I won't be posting any pictures.

A Delicious Dish

So I'm sure you've all been anxiously awaiting my next blog post. I'd like to say I've been up to fun and exciting things that have kept me busy, but I would be lying. I have been watching my Big Love dvds, which took an ungodly amount of time to get here, thanks to the extreme efficiency of the USPS mail forwarding service.
I decided to share one of my easy recipes for pasta. I used to make it all the time back in my Law School Days because its easy and can be tweaked in lots of ways to accomodate what you have.
As a disclaimer, I never measure or follow recipe directions unless absolutely necessary. I blame this on the fact that I sort of have ADD and control issues and it stresses me out to follow someone else's instructions precisely. Yes, I'm crazy, this is not news to anyone. So use as much as you would for however many people you're cooking for. Play around with proportions and such. My "recipes" are more like loose guidelines suggesting the basic idea of what you're cooking but its essential you use your own judgment.
So without further ado....My Special Pasta

- Heat water for pasta. I prefer to use a whole wheat spaghetti for this, but pasta is pasta and you can really use any kind you like.
- Heat up some olive oil with spices of your choice in a frying pan. I like garlic, basic (fresh or frozen is preferable to dried), sea salt, ground pepper, herbes de provence and cumin but you can use whatever herbs, spices and seasonings you like.
- If desired, add some meat. Chicken sausage works well, but chicken, ground meat (beef, turkey, etc) or shrimp would work. Cook the meat in the spice-oil.
*This is entirely optional and can be omitted to be more appealing to your vegetarian friends (or self), or if you just don't feel like eating meat.
- Open a can of diced tomatoes. Pour as much as you want into the pan.
- Add in vegetables of your choice. Spinach and broccoli work well, but again, use whatever frozen or fresh veggies you have hanging around. I once used an extra avocado I had and it was excellent.
- Let the sauce simmer.
- When the pasta is almost done, throw it into the pan and let it all cook together. Be sure not to overcook the pasta when you boil it, because it will cook a little more in the sauce.
- Once everything is mixed and has cooked for a little while, transfer to a serving bowl and sprinkle with parmesean cheese (or don't, if you don't eat dairy).

I enjoy this because its lighter and than your typical jar of tomato sauce. I find heavy red sauces boring unless they are really well seasoned and made with fresh ingredients. What can I say, I'm from NY so I'm a snob about Italian food and I think a lot of restaurants bastardize Italian food by using heavy, bland sauces and over cooked pasta.
This was inspired by a goat cheese in tomato sauce skillet from a neat little tapas place in Clayton. The tomato sauce was light but sort of spicy and very delicious so tried to make my own. Of course, it isn't quite as good, but I think its tasty and easy and leaves lot of room for your own creativity!
Mangia!

Hilarious

This is pretty funny, no matter what your political alignment is-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVLV6YW57dI

Apparently I'm too dumb to figure out how to put youtube videos on my blog. If any of my 2 readers can help me out with that I'd appreciate it.

So I lied....

Yet another activity I'll be partaking in on this blog is my own reviews of books, movies, tv shows, etc. I am qualified as a reviewer by virtue of the fact that I say mean things sometimes. So without further ado, I present to you....my very first review!



Twilight and New Moon, by Stephenie Meyer
I will start by saying I am not the target audience for YA fiction (though I will admit that I have read and thoroughly enjoyed all of the Harry Potter books). However, I'd heard of Twilight through its mentions on gofugyourself and knew that it was a popular series about beautiful vampires in love or some such nonsense, and that it was somewhat controversial. "Somewhat controversial" are magic words for me, so I was intrigued. And then one my Dear Friends, who teaches history to High School Monsters in North Carolina sent me a copy of Twilight as a graduation present. So I read it, and then went out and bought the second book in the series, New Moon. Did I like the books? Yes and no.
We'll start with the positive. The books are compulsively readable. You can sit there and blow through 100 pages and not even realize it. And the idea is original- "vegetarian" vampires (ie they drink animal blood only and don't hurt people) in the Pacific Northwest, one of whom falls in love with a human female. And despite the fact that the characters are neither terribly relatable or even fleshed out, I found myself really curious to see where the story went, so curious that I went out and bought the second book.
And now the negative. The characters are weakly developed. The female lead, Bella, has no discernible traits besides being a klutz. The "love" between Bella and Edward seems to have developed after spending almost no time together. Edward "loves" Bella because she has a personal scent that is attractive to him, and Bella "loves" Edward because he is beautiful. When Bella actually develops a meaningful friendship with Jacob, another boy, she sees their relationship as a pale imitation of the real thing that she had with Edward, and cannot bring herself to love him as anything more than a friend in spite of the fact he's infinitely nicer to her than Edward is.
The most disturbing aspect of the books, however, is the proto-abusive relationship between the two main characters. Edward is extremely moody, controlling, jealous and prone toward violent responses. He isolates her from her peers, he sneaks into her room and watches her sleep at night. He loses his temper and treats her coldly with no warning. Bella fits the profile of a woman susceptible to abuse- lonely and insecure, she feels undeserving of love. She is socially isolated from her peers, has a distant father and a flaky, man-dependent mother. This is not the relationship model we want tween and teen girls to model!
As to whether I will read the third and fourth installments in the series, the jury is still out. My funds are limited and I would rather spend what I have on $6 beers at beachy bars while the weather is still nice. That being said, I've heard that the next book gets all creepy about vampire-human sex and is an allegory to encourage premarital virginity among young girls (the author is Mormon). I hate to admit that this intrigues me, even I will more than likely find it annoying....

So, I'm pretty late to jump on this whole blogging thing. Two of my favorite friends are already avid bloggers, so now they have to look at mine too! HA!
I am 26, and a recent law school graduate. I am currently unemployed and had to move back in with my parents, which is every bit as glamorous as it sounds (or glamourous, as Darling Brother would say). I've spent my time since the bar moving, packing and unpacking, going to the beach, getting drunk in ways that are contextually inappropriate and watching lots of tv on dvd. Its been a thrilling few weeks, to say the least. And yes I am looking for a job, but I'm not killing myself about it yet, since most of my law school friends have not yet arrived in NY and I'm not in the mood to start hemhorraging my meager funds to live in a shoebox yet.
In order to fill my days with more meaning, I've decided to take on a few hobbies. With the help of a certain awesome former roommate, I have come up with a list of cheap and easy activities. These include, but are not limited to:
- Creating new recipes for the financially challenged, lazy and somewhat health-conscious.
- Searching for the best cheap red wines.
- Creating a mini-terrarium so that my awesomely annoying kitten Holly can't eat the plants.
- Exploring my hometown on bike and taking lots of pictures.
- "Shopping" through magazines and creating a book of ideas for future homes, travels, etc.
- Research and discussion of McCain/Obama's potential cabinets, judge nominations.
- Yammering away about things a reasonable person shouldn't care or think about.
I will share the fruits of these endeavors with you. And yes, it will probably be boring. But here and there you may get to enjoy a few anecdotes from back when I used to have a somewhat exciting life, and you might learn some tricks to kill time when you inevitably have some boring days
So welcome to my worthless blog, Dear Readers. And welcome to the inner workings of my crazy brain!