"Have I told you, lasagna, that I love you," *woman in audience squeals* "Have I told you there's no pasta dish above you, You take so long to prepare, A real time-consuming nightmare, But, please my tastebuds, that's what you do."
*standing ovation*
When I went grocery shopping on Friday it was with the intention of buying the ingredients for stuffed shells. However, there was only one brand of pasta shells available and they were over $3, so plans quickly changed over to lasagna. It doesn't really make that much of a difference, as I am passionately in love with any and all Italian baked pasta dishes. Sure, you can prepare light, healthy Italian meals, but... why????? Honestly.
I didn't actually get around to making it until yesterday. First I made the tofu ricotta. If you haven't made it before, I'd recommend using the recipe from Veganomicon. Otherwise, you know what to do. I tend to think making it with extra firm tofu makes it too dry, so I used firm tofu and then added a little unsweetened soy milk to make it creamy. And lots of fresh basil. It makes all the difference.
Then I made the veggies. I sauteed half a sweet onion, garlic, one huge carrot, 8 oz. sliced mushrooms, and one bunch of red chard in EVOO. I happen to feel that red chard is highly superior to spinach, but to each her own. Looking back now, I wish I'd added more garlic and also some broccoli. Next time!
I'd like to tell you that I made my own marinara sauce, I really would. I used to make it all the time, but I no longer knowingly consume anything that comes out of a can, so crushed tomatoes are out. I have yet to find myself in possession of a truckload of roma tomatoes so I can make it from scratch, so jarred sauce it is. I know their ingredients probably met up with a can somewhere along the way, but I do the best I can, alright?! So, I used... oh, god... a jar of Heart Smart Prego sauce and a small jar of Ragu pizza sauce mixed together.
Oh, the shame. X(
I think they taste good together. Please don't tell anyone, though. I'm so embarrassed.
Let me tell you something, whole wheat lasagna noodles are a pain in the ass. They seem to take longer to cook, which is unforgivable. It didn't help that I had to use a shallow pot to cook them in, thereby forcing me to boil just four at a time. By this stage in the game I was asking myself if it was really worth all this trouble. I didn't have an answer. This happens every time I make lasagna, though, so I should know better by now.
So here's how it went down: a little sauce on the bottle of my most beloved Emile Henry lasagna dish (MONEY. WELL. SPENT.), then a layer of hated wheat noodles, tofu ricotta, Daiya mozzarella shreds, veggies, sauce, noodles, ricotta, cheese, veg, sauce, noodles, cheese, torn basil leaves, sauce. *whew* Covered it with foil and shoved it into the oven. 375 F for 30 minutes, then uncovered it and sent it back in for another 10 minutes at 400 F.
And then the wait.
And then...
Hello, lover.
YUM!!!! It turned out really well. Next time I'd like to double the fillings so I can add more layers. I won't forget the broccoli either. Some Gimme Lean sausage too, perhaps.
I'm gonna have to have some more when I'm done posting this. Like... right now.
I feel it necessary to state from the outset that this isn’t going to be one of my usual posts. It isn’t about humor, food, veganism, movies, hippie beauty treatments, music, or one of my silly rants. It’s about fear, aggression, violence, and dominance. It’s relevant because of what I’m currently reading, because of what’s going on these days, and because of what has happened in the past to make me the way I am.
I’ve borrowed “Fight Like a Girl… and Win” by Lori Hartman Gervasi from the library. As you’ve probably assumed, it’s about self-defense for women.
I openly make fun of my step dad, glossing over the ugliness that used to be commonplace in my family, and choosing instead to focus on the hilariously aggravating parts. My mom married him when I was 7 years old, and things immediately began to go… wrong. He wasn’t physically abusive, although he did strike me once, it was more emotional and mental. He slowly chiseled away at the light within my mom, and he alternated between being nice, buying us things, and being cruel. Violence was a concept that silently hung in the air like stale cigarette smoke. He was the man, he made the money (which wasn’t true, both of them worked), and that’s just the way the world worked. I was raised not to talk back to adults, so I didn’t. Neither of us spoke up. It was easier to live that way. I don’t want you to think we were constantly in fear, though. This only applied when he got really angry. The only problem was, we never knew what would set him off. Like Russian roulette.
After I graduated from high school, I wanted a dog. I found Basil, who instantly became, and remains, the love of my life. One day he relieved himself on some newspaper that we’d laid out for him in the living room (the joys of housebreaking), but a little of it dribbled off onto the carpet. I was cleaning it up, but my step dad had unfortunately witnessed the offense and began ranting and raving about it. I made the mistake of muttering, “Jesus Christ,” under my breath, which sent him over the edge. He yelled that he was going to take Basil to the pound and I would never see him again. This was the last straw. I shot to my feet and started screaming from the top of my lungs at him, telling him exactly what I thought of him. I didn’t have any control over the situation, I had just become pure rage. I grabbed the dog, hopped in the car, and left, returning a couple of hours later when my mom had finally calmed me down over the phone. Fury still seethed from every one of my pores, and I adopted a sinister silence toward him. For the next 3 nights my step dad locked the bedroom door at night because he was completely convinced that I would murder him in his sleep.
To this day, almost 10 years later, that man still cannot look me in the eye. He uses a submissive tone when he speaks to me. If he wants something from me, he has my mom ask me at a later time when he isn’t around. He knows that if he pushes me I'll erupt again. That’s not to say things got better, though. You might wonder where the “And Worse” title originated from. Well, I’ll finally tell you.
The angry outbursts worsened over the years. He frequently threatened to harm our pets, and was sometimes too harsh with them, the cats in particular. He said horrible things about my grandmother to my mom, truly awful things I don’t even want to repeat. Shit really hit the fan in 2008. I was in the living room, they were in the kitchen at the table. I don’t even know what they were fighting about, I just remember the volume rising as he detailed all the horrible things he wanted to see happen to my mom and to me. My personal favorite was when he said he was going to mutilate us both in our beds. When he eventually ran out of steam, my mom, amazingly calm, simply asked, “Do you really think I deserve any of that?” “Yes!” he replied, “And worse!”
We, being the sickos we are, adopted “and worse” and began tacking it onto the ends of random sentences. For fun. Sometimes you have to make a joke of something horrible in order to hang on to your sanity.
I began adding kickboxing into my workouts. I studied hand to hand combat videos. I sometimes slept with a knife next to my bed. We told our neighbors what was going on so that someone would know what happened if we ended up dead. The best news I’d ever heard was when my mom said she was leaving him, eclipsed only by my joy when she later told me she'd decided that she wanted to move to Portland.
Due to financial reasons, we all still live together. We’re separate people, though. We aren’t a family. I’ve gotten soft and lazy. He’s been diagnosed as a transgender male-to-female. He’s on hormones, which helps a lot. Supposedly his outbursts were caused by the internal struggle he dealt with because of his gender confusion, or whatever. I don’t care, that doesn’t make it okay. But we coexist, for the most part. It’s only temporary anyway.
Last week he yelled at my mom when I wasn’t around. This kind of thing never happens in my presence, and she was concerned that he was going to flip out again. Nothing has happened since then, but I still felt it wise to learn more about self-defense. Just in case.
My biggest fear in life is being raped. I hate being vulnerable, and to me intimacy is the ultimate in vulnerability. I can't fathom sharing that much of myself with someone whom I don't trust completely. To have it stolen from me? I'd rather die. I’ve never been in a dangerous situation like that with a man, but the number of violent crimes against women (not just rape) is staggering. We're easy targets. No one ever taught us how to defend ourselves. It’s not like I think we should all go out and started walloping on random dudes, but we don’t want to be victims.
There’s a consistency in the book I’m reading and the teachings of Dr. Ruthless…
It’s that instant when you just go crazy. You become the monster. That happened the day I exploded, so I know that I’m capable of it. Looking back now, I’m amazed that I didn’t physically attack my step dad. Now I’m working out again. I’m making more of an effort to be aware of my surroundings. I’m willing to be all scary psycho woman if the need arises, though I truly hope it never comes to that. I want to learn Krav Maga, too.
I totally have a crush on this guy now.
But it changes you. I’m an angry person. Not all the time, but it simmers deep within me. I feel like a dormant volcano. I sometimes wonder what kind of person I would be if I hadn’t had that one particular person in my life. Maybe it’s just as well. The world is a violent place.
If someone takes me down, though, I’m bringing him with me.
I also may need to work on coming up with shorter post titles.
People often sing the praises of Portland's scenery. The trees, the flowers, the river, Mount Hood, etc. It's all lovely, this place is truly beautiful. But there's another aspect to the landscape that I wasn't really aware of before moving here.
The men. Of all ages.
I probably fall head over heels in lust with someone new every time I leave the apartment. Sure, that sounds great, but it's not! Even though I'm fully aware that they're out there, I am still caught off guard by attractive men. It's like wandering through a cheap carnival haunted house and jumping out of your skin when a cardboard ghoul pops up. It's the Haunted House o' Hunks!
I love how my butchering of this photo doesn't take away from Jason Lewis AT ALL.
It's my fault, really. I tend to run errands without putting on more than the absolute minimal makeup required of me to keep from being confused with a zombie. My bad! You'd think your safe just running to the bank, the grocery store, sitting in traffic, random places. Wrong! You know what the worst place is, though? Co-ops!!! Must be all the local, organic, healthy food or something. Co-op guys tend to be really nice, too, or at least that's been my experience.
There's another sure bet. I shop at Fred Meyer on Friday mornings, and if I go early enough I get to catch... the firemen. Yes, plural. I see them in the produce area and around the bulk bins.
So what's the problem? Well, I feel inadequate. In my early 20s I used to prance around like a show pony, but these days? I'm a little more utilitarian. Read that as: I feel like a frumpy lump. The obvious solution is to don an evening gown every time I step out. Or, maybe, you know, try not to worry about it so much. Ha.
In unrelated, yet wholly relevant, news... I'm working on myself these days. I started doing yoga again (two days in a row so far! WOO!). I'm growing my hair out. I'm considering cutting out refined sugars from my sugary diet. Trying to pull myself out of the slump I've been in. This isn't about dating, it's just about me. Dating doesn't figure into any of my plans right now. But it's good to know that there are indeed plenty of fish in the sea.
In the meantime, I guess I should just enjoy the view.
Wait! What about the ladies? Aside from my longstanding lady crush on Gina Gershon (honestly, was there any other reason to suffer through Showgirls?), I may not spend quite as much time ogling the lovely women of Portland, but they're totally out there. A quick browse through the personals will tell you that. ;)
I tend to feel that I am somewhat lacking in the intelligence department, not to be confused with the Department of Intelligence, in which case I am severely lacking (ba-dum ching!). The truth is, I haven't gone to college. I was set to, but things kind of fell apart and I haven't found my way back. Yet. I realize there are plenty of people who go back to school in their 30s. Hell, there are people who get to class in their 70s! And I'm fully aware that there are individuals walking around out there with doctorates who are complete morons. My not having a degree doesn't usually bother me, but sometimes I feel slitely stoopid, you know?
Yesterday I was catching up with a close friend. I told him about my new fascination with glasses and how I secretly long to be a sexy librarian, that I feel like I need to step up my game in the kitchen now that people on Google+ can see my food pics (especially since my favorite vegan blogger is aware of my existence), and about my mission to create the ultimate Christmas music collection (I'm almost finished, yay!). He was pleasantly supportive of these things, but I suddenly felt shallow and selfish. I tried to steer the conversation to even ground, bringing up video games, which he loves. We're both looking forward to the new Assassin's Creed game, Revelations:
I don't actually play video games, I just get a figurative hard-on for Ezio Auditore. *rawr* Still, the conversation felt like a mountain of fluff. For some reason, I felt compelled to mention this.
"My hobbies are stupid," I said. "Not to you they aren't," he said. This didn't make me feel any better. When I went to bed last night I was still bothered. I decided to read the New York Times on my phone. I read about Obama being a centrist when it comes to the economy (or whatever), which made me angry, and I went to sleep feeling both stupid AND pissed off.
Today I began reading "The Second Sex" by Simone de Beauvoir. This is a nice change from my usual romance novels. I need to branch out more. A few years ago, on a whim, I borrowed Michio Kaku's "Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time (Great Discoveries)" from the library and I really enjoyed it. I love theoretical physics. And I love nature documentaries. So maybe I'm not so dumb after all.
And even if I were, would that make me less of a person?
We have a female cat named Squee. Before I continue, I'd like to point out that I named her this BEFORE the word "squee" became an exclamation for all things cute and exciting. I actually named her after the comic book character who lived next to Johnny the Homicidal Maniac (proof). Anyway, Squee is quite possibly the dumbest feline I've ever met, but she is also the sweetest. She has a lovely personality, and while I occasionally chuckle at her reasoning skills, I don't think any less of her for them. Much. Ha!
Who? Me?
I think a little extra learnin' would make me feel better. Not to keep others from judging me, but just for myself. And maybe I'm not so bad off. It's not like I sit around eating potting soil or anything.
In yet another step on the path to my unintentional nouveau-hippie glory, I have done the unthinkable. I've given up shampoo. It's weird to hear a woman say that, isn't it? I'm going with the baking soda and apple cider vinegar routine.
And I'm surprisingly happy with it!
Is she seriously doing a blog post on her hair?
Dude, I totally am.
I have four reasons for this: it's cheap, it's easy, I don't have to worry about harsh chemicals on my head, and it has saved my poor hair!
Quick history lesson. When I was little I had fantastic hair. It was smooth and silky. I have photographic evidence:
D'awwww.
That's me at two. I'll have you know I was VERY sick that day, and still worked it like a pro.
Me at four. A little curl was creeping in by then, but it was all good. When I hit puberty, though, something horrible happened...
Mm-hmm. That's not an exaggeration. I spent the better part of my tween years with my hair pulled up/back/down/all around in a ponytail. By 14 I'd developed an addiction to styling mousse. It wasn't until my early twenties that my hair calmed down enough to even be considered curly, not just poofy, and it still needed mousse.
That was my favorite piercing, btw.
I had a hard time keeping my hair healthy. It wasn't shiny, it felt awful, but I didn't know what else to do. It was either crunchy and dry, or dull from the times I took a flat iron to it and scorched it into submission. Last summer I'd finally had enough and cut it all off. Freedom eventually turned into horror over what I'd done, and I've been growing it out ever since.
I went "poo free" about two weeks ago. I've read many times that it takes your scalp weeks to stop producing too much natural oil to protect your hair, as commercial shampoos strip it all away and the scalp tries to compensate, and you just have to tough it out. I haven't had this problem. It's been perfect since Day 1. My hair is soft and it's not oily at all.
Once a week I wash it with 1 tablespoon of baking soda mixed with 1 cup of water, rinse it, then use 1 tablespoon of the vinegar with 1 cup of water as a conditioner (I got the bottles in the 1st pic at the Dollar Store). And it doesn't make my hair smell gross, in case you were wondering. It doesn't smell like anything, actually. After it dries I rub a tiny bit of Giovanni Frizz Be Gone over it and that's it. The rest of the week I wash it with just water, and I don't need to reapply the serum. Perfect every time.
Here's a video of someone else talking about poo free hair:
I haven't tried any oil treatments yet, but I probably will eventually. The funny thing is, my hair is more wavy than curly now. If it stays like this, it'll be really pretty when it's longer. I could actually end up liking my hair. Finally!
I was going to be all, "And I don't have to worry about animal testing!" but I checked right before I started writing this, and evidently Arm & Hammer does conduct animal testing. Next time I will buy Bob's Red Mill baking soda instead. I'm also going to invest in a large bottle of organic apple cider vinegar. Apparently it also makes a great skin toner.
I'm increasingly interested in DIY beauty stuff like this. I'd like to learn more about skincare. I'm going to be 28 later this year, I need to start paying attention to my skin. Or is it already too late? I hope not. :/ Whatever, at least I'll have great hair.
