Oyster Farmer clip

You'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking

Oh, if that title were true, I'd be burnt to a crisp. As I believe I've mentioned before, I am constantly (well, often anyway) musing about the sexual potential of customers, various celebrities, random strangers, people I've known for years. It's the curse or blessing of my [almost] middle-aged hormones, I suppose. Today after seeing my favorite classical musician customer (looking especially fetching, I might add, despite his awful Coogi sweater), a couple of co-workers and I were talking about the subject. One of them freely copped to doing exactly what I do. (Which does amount, I admit, to objectifying a person nearly completely. So sue me.) The other co-worker claimed to have never done such a thing. She said that when she was in a relationship she never even thought of anyone else as attractive, let alone about doing wonderfully naughty things with them. Now that she's single I think her implication was that she's just too chaste to think that way. A load of bullshit or sadly true? Your guess is as good as mine with this chick. I had to listen to a verrrrrrrry long exposition about how her life is just like the life of a certain former very popular TV character. Very long. And, by the way, not so much.

I just finished reading "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers. Man, I thought I liked her, but I could barely make myself finish this book. It was tortuously slow going but I didn't want to give up. Give me Flannery O'Connor, Harper Lee, Eudora Welty or, more currently, Donna Tartt, any day. Sorry Carson, but don't feel bad because I don't much like William Faulkner either.

I have all evening to myself and I'm going to spend it with my celebrity secret boyfriend, Alex O'Loughlin, watching The Oyster Farmer. Yum. I'll leave you with a lovely candid from ComicCon.

It was you breathless and tall, I could feel my eyes turning into dust

Guess I should have posted a picture of our little silver Christmas tree earlier, but I didn't. I've enjoyed it's flashing lights and tinkly ornaments, but I'll probably take it down in the next couple of days.



It's really kind of hard to believe that Christmas has already come and gone. This wasn't my jolliest of holiday seasons, but it was all right. Christmas day was actually pretty damn fun, particularly when my sister and I waged a furious boxing battle against each other with the Wii. She won, but it was by decision, not a KO, at least. It was nine minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise and much yelling and screaming. There was a threat of the entire thing being posted to Youtube, but it hasn't happened yet. Perhaps I'll post it, if I don't look too ridiculous. I've never wanted a videogame, but I think I'd like to have a Wii. The tennis, baseball and bowling had their charms as well. I wonder what else you can play on it? I could barely move the next morning though. That's some real exercise you get from the Wii.

I haven't cooked much lately, what with my foul moods and the holidays. But on this, my brief day off, I've baked a loaf of bread and made a ginormous pot of chicken noodle soup. Wanna see?





The house smells really good from the bread baking and the soup simmering. An added salad should make a lovely dinner.

You broke another mirror; you're turning into something you are not.

What a fucking day. Mid morning, at work, some sort of hormonal surge or something sent me into a total tailspin. It was everything I could do to keep from sobbing into the lattes. I'm not even sure what it was that set me off. Perhaps the fact that I have to work on so many holidays now. For the last 15+ years I haven't had to work between Christmas Eve and January 2 and it's just shocking to have no choice in the matter now. I'm feeling like I do nothing but work now; that all my life revolves around going to work. Can't stay out late because I have to get up at 3:45a the next day. Can't go to dinner because I have to work until almost 11:00p. Can't do anything but wait for the next shift to start. This job takes up way more of my energy than I expected and sometimes I really resent it. Today is definitely one of those days. I don't feel like I have a single bit of control over when I work and I hate that. Do I even have any vacation days? How long before they start accumulating? At my last job I walked in with three weeks vacation. God, I miss that. Sometimes I miss those regular hours too. Today is not a day that I value the variety this job provides. The only good thing that happened today is that I got to go home a couple hours early.

I need some serious Christmas cheer. Tonight we're celebrating with Steve's family, including his very ill youngest brother. I don't suspect it will be a terribly cheery event. Hopefully tomorrow with my family will improve my mood. Of course, I'm already fretting that I have to work on Wednesday at 4:45a...

And I've had the breath of liars blowing me off course in my sails.

Why, after all these years and many instances of betrayal, am I still surprised and shocked and hurt when someone I thought I could trust proves to be, at the least, unreliable? So I was shocked the other day at work when I realized that I probably couldn't trust someone I thought I could. Now, I have no proof, but it suddenly became clear who was the likely culprit. It sucks and I of course will not trust this person again, but I do still like 'em. Sigh.

Last night we DJed at the Royale. The end of that evening has left me in a bad and rather angry (however futile) mood. Most of the night was entertaining and not all of the end was bad, but there were definitely big parts I could have absolutely done without.

Today I made more candy, wrapped a bunch of gifts and tried to figure out appropriate gifts, if any, for co-workers. I didn't do nearly enough work and I'm sure I have a zillion things to do before Christmas. I only work until early p.m. tomorrow so I guess there will be no rest for me on this Sunday.

Baking some more chicken tonight, with potatoes and buttered peas. Old school and simple.

When you're near me I have difficulty concentrating

Well, the review went pretty well. It lasted, however, for almost three hours. My boss and I, when we have the opportunity, tend to talk. A lot. I feel pretty good about my place and confident that, even if I'm not always the most people-oriented person, I do a damn good job. It was important to me to know I was doing well. I'm kind of an overachiever that way. So, since I got home so much later than I thought I would, it was Papa John's pan pizza for us. The last two times we've had PJ's pizza, it was good. Really good.

Tonight I have spent too much time online stalking a customer I'm kind of obsessed with -- for no real reason (ok, well, he is pretty cute). At any rate, today I asked him what he plays and where he plays it. He's with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra but I'll keep the identity of his instrument confidential, just in case. All further info is from my online, er, research. He has been playing since he was three. Three! And his current instrument is nearly three hundred years old. How cool is that? Anyway, I've been around rock musicians for over half my life, but I've never known a classical musician. Kind of fascinating.

Now I have to put down my computer (I had to give her up to Roy for over 24 hours for some tweaking and I missed her sorely), get to the kitchen and figure out what I'm doing with some chicken quarters. I guess I'll bake them with garlic and other spices or something. There will be broccoli and maybe a sort of risotto. However, I don't know if I have the wherewithall for risotto as I have some killer cramps right about now. Update: I'm baking the chicken withbrown rice, mushrooms, shallots and broth. Hopefully it'll work out into something that tastesgood and doesn't take a gazillion minutes to cook. Oh, and the cramps are abating.

Speaking of Roy, I wish I had a picture of him sitting on our couch with his legs crossed (guy-style -- can't think of what else to call it), with Foxy Brown's eyes and snout peaking through the open triangle of leg that results from that position. She stared intently at him and he just stared back. I laughed and laughed.

Oh lord deliver us from the elements

Yesterday I managed to squeeze in one more cookie recipe: paper thin oatmeal lace cookies. Really tasty, but a total pain in the ass to make. Plus they are extremely delicate, another pain. Again, at least they taste good.

Dinner tonight was easy: turkey smoked sausage roasted with potatoes and Thai ginger carrots from Trader Joe's.

Tomorrow I get to work eight hours and then submit to a performance review. Oh boy. I'm afeared my occasional lack of people skills might come up. Maybe. How to prepare? Expect the worst, be happy with what I get. Deal with it constructively? I'll try my best.

Why oh why do you treat me like a snowman

I have been a neglectful blogger. I just haven't had time these last few days. Let's see, to catch up with dinner reports, we weren't home together at dinner time last Thursday; and on Friday night we had pork pad thai from King & I. On Saturday I reprised the portabella cream pasta from Steve's birthday which we had with a simple romaine and tomato salad. Yum. Last night I made a pot of chili that turned out quite nicely. I cooked a batch of pinto beans in the pressure cooker, then made a big batch of chili using languiza sausage (sort of like chorizorizo). Topped with grated cheese and oyster crackers, it was great with a bottle of merlot.

Today is Christmas baking and cooking day. So far I've made lemon cornmeal poppyseed cookies, chocolate almond biscotti drizzled with white chocolate, milk chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies (chilling in the fridge but not yet baked), cream cheese mints, white chocolate nut clusters and I'm getting ready to prepare a chocolate walnut buttercrunch toffee. Who knows what else I can squeeze in.

Dinner tonight will be leftover chili. Maybe chili mac using leftover plain pasta from Saturday...

Oh, and I hate snow. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty for about an hour, then it freezes to ice and makes driving in the City hazardous and horrible..