So it looks like I'm coming home on Thursday. I was on the fence about it for the last week, but after talking to Grandma this afternoon, I think it'd be best if I'm around to help out. I don't have any idea how long I'll be in town, but it'll be at least a month, probably. Got to get some more money together to offset the cost of this plane ticket, the cost to get back up there, and the time I'll spend jobless in the meantime. I don't know much else about my plans.
Did you know that the bereavement rates for all of the airlines that offer them are more expensive than the normal rate you'd get online? I guess they figure that people who have just been smacked in the face with something like this wouldn't be in the mood to comparison-shop.
About an hour after I found out about Dad's condition, a friend called me up and offered me another free car (the first being Sheriff's Buick), a '96 Saturn. He said that someone gave it to him, but he didn't need it anymore, and it would help me find a job. I guess they'll be here when I get back.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Romano
I met a guy last night who was working the door at a bar where Mitchel's band was playing. He checked my ID and saw that I was from Arkansas. "Man, what the FUCK you doin' here?" he asked. I wasn't ready for that question, so I told him I wasn't sure. "Arkansas! Man, FUCK Arkansas," he replied. I told him that I guess I agree, and he told me he was from Helena. Then I apologized for him being from Helena, even though I didn't have anything to do with that. "It's covered in kudzu these days," I said. "Dang, man," he replied. We talked for a few minutes about how there isn't a Church's Chicken or Popeye's around here, and argued the relative merits and shortcomings of each. I took Church's side, of course, but it wasn't a very objective or worthwhile argument.
He was the eighth black person I've seen since coming here, and the first that I've spoken to. His name is Romano.
He was the eighth black person I've seen since coming here, and the first that I've spoken to. His name is Romano.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Sorry.
For some reason, since the last entry, I've become afraid of writing here. I'm forcing myself to write now, but finding that I don't have much to say.
Every week or so I'm told a new reason to expect that Dad may be dying soon. Then, a few days later, I'm told a reason to expect that he'll be fine for a while. I honestly don't know how much longer I'll be here.
The other day, a homeless-seeming man named Joe, who was wearing a baseball cap that said "Joemerica," wandered up to me and a friend downtown. We were ordering chili dogs from a sidewalk window as he started a conversation with my friend. I'd said nothing to him when he told my friend, as I stood right there beside them, that he pitied me. "This guy, this guy here, I feel sorry for him, because he'll never know what it's like to be in love. He's gonna live his whole life and he's never gonna know!" This was several days ago, and still I have no idea what he meant by that. Maybe that polite smile I'd given was especially unattractive to him.
So here's a recipe I sorta made up for coconut curry sauce. It's good, but I've made it twice now and both times it has ended up a bit too spicy for my taste. I've only recently started to appreciate hot foods, but I still don't like peppers. Anyway:
Barry's Yellow Curry Coconut Slop Plus Some Vegetables
1 can (13 oz. I think?) coconut milk
2 cups chicken broth
1-3 teaspoons cayenne pepper (depending on how hot you like your food; I used 2 the first time, then 1.5, and it was still uncomfortable for me)
2-3 tablespoons yellow curry powder (again, depending on how much you like curry)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 clove garlic (I guess you could also use a tablespoon of garlic powder)
2 large carrots
3 red potatoes
1 cup frozen green peas
salt & pepper to taste
Combine all of the ingredients except the vegetables and bring them to a light boil, then reduce heat to medium. While that's boiling, mince the garlic, then chop up the carrots and potatoes to about 1/2" thick. I always skin the carrots, but not the potatoes. Take your time with this - the gravy needs to reduce for a while, about 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add in the carrots and boil those alone for about five minutes. Then add the potatoes and boil for ten or so more minutes (still stirring occasionally). Finally, add the peas and boil for five more minutes, or until it's as thick as you like. It will thicken more as it cools into something like a stew.
It would be pretty good as a stew, I guess, but I served it over rice to weaken the cayenne. Pineapple or regular apple would probably be pretty good in it, but I keep forgetting to buy them. The first time I made it a little differently, baking it in a 13x9" dish with a whole, quartered, bone-in chicken (375 degrees, covered, for 30 minutes, then remove cover, flip chicken pieces, stir sauce, drown vegetables, and bake another 20-30 minutes without cover). Like most curry I've had, it's a lot better after it has sat in the fridge overnight.
It's pretty good!
Every week or so I'm told a new reason to expect that Dad may be dying soon. Then, a few days later, I'm told a reason to expect that he'll be fine for a while. I honestly don't know how much longer I'll be here.
The other day, a homeless-seeming man named Joe, who was wearing a baseball cap that said "Joemerica," wandered up to me and a friend downtown. We were ordering chili dogs from a sidewalk window as he started a conversation with my friend. I'd said nothing to him when he told my friend, as I stood right there beside them, that he pitied me. "This guy, this guy here, I feel sorry for him, because he'll never know what it's like to be in love. He's gonna live his whole life and he's never gonna know!" This was several days ago, and still I have no idea what he meant by that. Maybe that polite smile I'd given was especially unattractive to him.
So here's a recipe I sorta made up for coconut curry sauce. It's good, but I've made it twice now and both times it has ended up a bit too spicy for my taste. I've only recently started to appreciate hot foods, but I still don't like peppers. Anyway:
Barry's Yellow Curry Coconut Slop Plus Some Vegetables
1 can (13 oz. I think?) coconut milk
2 cups chicken broth
1-3 teaspoons cayenne pepper (depending on how hot you like your food; I used 2 the first time, then 1.5, and it was still uncomfortable for me)
2-3 tablespoons yellow curry powder (again, depending on how much you like curry)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 clove garlic (I guess you could also use a tablespoon of garlic powder)
2 large carrots
3 red potatoes
1 cup frozen green peas
salt & pepper to taste
Combine all of the ingredients except the vegetables and bring them to a light boil, then reduce heat to medium. While that's boiling, mince the garlic, then chop up the carrots and potatoes to about 1/2" thick. I always skin the carrots, but not the potatoes. Take your time with this - the gravy needs to reduce for a while, about 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add in the carrots and boil those alone for about five minutes. Then add the potatoes and boil for ten or so more minutes (still stirring occasionally). Finally, add the peas and boil for five more minutes, or until it's as thick as you like. It will thicken more as it cools into something like a stew.
It would be pretty good as a stew, I guess, but I served it over rice to weaken the cayenne. Pineapple or regular apple would probably be pretty good in it, but I keep forgetting to buy them. The first time I made it a little differently, baking it in a 13x9" dish with a whole, quartered, bone-in chicken (375 degrees, covered, for 30 minutes, then remove cover, flip chicken pieces, stir sauce, drown vegetables, and bake another 20-30 minutes without cover). Like most curry I've had, it's a lot better after it has sat in the fridge overnight.
It's pretty good!
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Sore
Sore all over. I went skiing yesterday for the first time in two years. Strange little muscles that I'd taken for granted and apparently used very rarely make themselves known every time I reach or turn over in bed. Arthritis wasn't so bad compared to this - for as painful as it was, at least it came with strict stiffness to mostly limit the painful movements. Since I woke up today I've been continuously discovering new ways of causing sharp, sudden pain all over my body.
I keep thinking of the day Mom spent in bed after her first (and only, I think) time out on the tube on the lake. Is this what getting old is? I haven't bought any weights yet, and haven't been able to ride my bike in weeks with all of the snow, so it's probably more of a consequence of laziness.
I'd say it was worth it, of course, but that's what I always say to myself to avoid the shame of unexpected but completely deserved negative consequences. Looking back, I probably shouldn't have spent the money.
People always warn that living on the coasts is more expensive, but they never factor time and distance into the cost. It was only about a two-hour drive, and we got a good seven hours of skiing out of the day without having to get up early. Skiing used to be necessarily a week-long endeavor flanked by smelly twelve-hour rides on charter buses, but now it's a casual day trip with a few friends and plenty of time between trips to recover. There's still plenty of pretension (maybe more, actually, now that most everyone around me is an expert), but certainly no more than I experienced during those occasional clumsy games of golf at the Country Club of Little Rock. And good, fitting skis are only $12 at the local Goodwill! Boy.
I haven't lost much doubt over whether this whole idea will work out for me, but I'm still amazed almost daily at the potential this place holds. I wonder what all of the idealist teenagers who grew up here look forward to moving away to. California, probably. I'm glad I'll never have that disappointment.
New Year's Eve turned out to be another amazing surprise. A few of my friends were planning a trip to Seattle to see Devotchka, a fairly well-known musical act that does a sort of mix between traditional Eastern European folk and what kids these days call "Indie Rock." I decided to stay around here to save some money (tickets were $50), but by some strange coincidence, a friend of a brother of a friend found a free ticket for me. I still blew too much money that night on ten-dollar drinks at the show and a ten-dollar bottle of wine at the gas station, though. Oh, well.
On this night, drunk and jumping around and dancing with strangers, I realized that I have an advantage in this place: I can forget myself and have fun. That's something I really wasn't expecting before coming up here. Not only is my sense of self suddenly disconnected enough not to care about what other people think (that had always been a challenge for me at parties and such), but almost every other male that I've seen up here at shows has been too timid or image-conscious to express themselves anywhere beyond restrained head-nodding and polite clapping. I guess it might have something to do with that urban jadedness they mentioned in my urban sociology classes, though I never considered my lifestyle rural in the slightest. Maybe it's just that the surrounding rural culture kept big-name acts like this from coming any closer than Dallas. Devotchka probably isn't that special to Seattle.
Though that enthusiasm did get me sort of hit-shoved in the face at midnight for kissing some stiff guy's drunk girlfriend who'd been dancing with me. Again - it was worth it.
Pictures! As always, click on each to expand.
We've had a lot of snow.
The crossroads of Hoot 'n' Holler and Hagen Hill. I went with Hagen.
Night skiing - a first for me. The lights make longer shadows, exaggerating the bumps and grooves in the snow, making it all the more terrifying to try not to disappoint the veteran snowboarders who were nice enough to drive me up there.
Sometimes I'd glance back over my shoulder and think the lights were cars coming down the hill, as if I were riding my bike down Pine Valley in Little Rock. Then I'd instinctively pull over only to get stuck in the deep, ungroomed powder.
I went with Red Bull, myself. The beer would have made me too apathetic to go down blue-rated slopes without health insurance.
Some friends from Olympia who took me to the show in Seattle. Nice folks.
Ryan doesn't live with us, but being from Jonesboro, he is an honorary member of Little Arkansas.
Here's a member of Devotchka. I wasn't early enough to get a place up front like this legitimately, but I wasn't met with any resistance on the way up, so I stayed. If you're not willing to at least give me a token push back, you don't deserve to be close enough to make drunken conversation with the band between songs.
See? Stiff, self-conscious, and totally not deserving.
I keep thinking of the day Mom spent in bed after her first (and only, I think) time out on the tube on the lake. Is this what getting old is? I haven't bought any weights yet, and haven't been able to ride my bike in weeks with all of the snow, so it's probably more of a consequence of laziness.
I'd say it was worth it, of course, but that's what I always say to myself to avoid the shame of unexpected but completely deserved negative consequences. Looking back, I probably shouldn't have spent the money.
People always warn that living on the coasts is more expensive, but they never factor time and distance into the cost. It was only about a two-hour drive, and we got a good seven hours of skiing out of the day without having to get up early. Skiing used to be necessarily a week-long endeavor flanked by smelly twelve-hour rides on charter buses, but now it's a casual day trip with a few friends and plenty of time between trips to recover. There's still plenty of pretension (maybe more, actually, now that most everyone around me is an expert), but certainly no more than I experienced during those occasional clumsy games of golf at the Country Club of Little Rock. And good, fitting skis are only $12 at the local Goodwill! Boy.
I haven't lost much doubt over whether this whole idea will work out for me, but I'm still amazed almost daily at the potential this place holds. I wonder what all of the idealist teenagers who grew up here look forward to moving away to. California, probably. I'm glad I'll never have that disappointment.
New Year's Eve turned out to be another amazing surprise. A few of my friends were planning a trip to Seattle to see Devotchka, a fairly well-known musical act that does a sort of mix between traditional Eastern European folk and what kids these days call "Indie Rock." I decided to stay around here to save some money (tickets were $50), but by some strange coincidence, a friend of a brother of a friend found a free ticket for me. I still blew too much money that night on ten-dollar drinks at the show and a ten-dollar bottle of wine at the gas station, though. Oh, well.
On this night, drunk and jumping around and dancing with strangers, I realized that I have an advantage in this place: I can forget myself and have fun. That's something I really wasn't expecting before coming up here. Not only is my sense of self suddenly disconnected enough not to care about what other people think (that had always been a challenge for me at parties and such), but almost every other male that I've seen up here at shows has been too timid or image-conscious to express themselves anywhere beyond restrained head-nodding and polite clapping. I guess it might have something to do with that urban jadedness they mentioned in my urban sociology classes, though I never considered my lifestyle rural in the slightest. Maybe it's just that the surrounding rural culture kept big-name acts like this from coming any closer than Dallas. Devotchka probably isn't that special to Seattle.
Though that enthusiasm did get me sort of hit-shoved in the face at midnight for kissing some stiff guy's drunk girlfriend who'd been dancing with me. Again - it was worth it.
Pictures! As always, click on each to expand.
We've had a lot of snow.
The crossroads of Hoot 'n' Holler and Hagen Hill. I went with Hagen.
Night skiing - a first for me. The lights make longer shadows, exaggerating the bumps and grooves in the snow, making it all the more terrifying to try not to disappoint the veteran snowboarders who were nice enough to drive me up there.
Sometimes I'd glance back over my shoulder and think the lights were cars coming down the hill, as if I were riding my bike down Pine Valley in Little Rock. Then I'd instinctively pull over only to get stuck in the deep, ungroomed powder.
I went with Red Bull, myself. The beer would have made me too apathetic to go down blue-rated slopes without health insurance.
Some friends from Olympia who took me to the show in Seattle. Nice folks.
Ryan doesn't live with us, but being from Jonesboro, he is an honorary member of Little Arkansas.
Here's a member of Devotchka. I wasn't early enough to get a place up front like this legitimately, but I wasn't met with any resistance on the way up, so I stayed. If you're not willing to at least give me a token push back, you don't deserve to be close enough to make drunken conversation with the band between songs.
See? Stiff, self-conscious, and totally not deserving.
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