cooking for two

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes Veggie Casserole:


^Desperately in need of color correction.^

Better pictures after this Saturday's walking tour:

Walking Greenpoint tour
Saturday, June 21, 12:00pm
Adrienne Onofri, author of Walking Brooklyn: 30 Tours Exploring Historical Legacies, Neighborhood Culture, Side Streets and Waterways, will lead us on a walking tour of Greenpoint. We will start the tour at the bookstore, and end here so Adrienne can sign copies of her book. Rain or shine.

There goes the neighborhood.

(No, there's no Buñ in the oven, and there never will be: My health care covers this.)

chick shit

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I attend a Pilates class from 8:15–9:30. The studio is two blocks from work, so I have more than three hours to kill before core-engaging time. Thus, I remained at work until six o'clock -- my day officially ends at 4:30 -- assuming that getting extra stuff done will make for a lighter workload the next day. (Also makes me feel better because I spend some time researching personal stuff, like looking for other Pilates classes and finding shoes that can bridge the work-play gap.) It was a wrongful assumption.

May I vent for a second how upset I am that six hours per week are wasted in Hoboken when they can better be used to scratch off things on my to-do list? In no particular order:
• Make Meg Pilates DVD and copy of Joe Hill's "Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead."
• Make Bill Pink Floyd CD.
• Purchase tickets for Avenue Q.
• Purchase tickets for Adding Machine.
• Go to Tekserve for replacement iPod battery.
• Shop in Soho: H&M for new shirts and Camper for these shoes.

At least I'm reading more. I'm a bit ticked my commute costs an extra $2.70 per day thanks to the Path and a little sad the commute's so short. It took me, jeesh, three weeks to a month to finish Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box. Sure, it was disturbing -- took me days to recover from that masturbation scene with a gun -- but taking that long for a mass-market paperback is unacceptable. Thanks to the pre-Pilates hours, I'm making headway on Janelle Brown's All We Ever Wanted Was Everything. I remember being in the launch meeting for it, as it's a fine S&G product, and the editorial head wanted to market it as more mainstream than Julie did. Putting this title in the chick-lit genre is a major disservice; I doubt Marian Keyes would ever pen a tale about a drug-using divorcée and her daughters: a sleeping-around adolescent and a desperate-for-work feminist.

Speaking of feminism, I'm seeing Sex and the City: The Movie with Meg tonight. We saw The Devil Wears Prada in summer 2006 and took summer 2007 off in terms of chick flicks. I remember watching Prada and feeling disappointed with the love interests: Adrian Grenier does nothing for me, and I winced when Simon Baker smooched Anne Hathaway because he looks so old and wrinkled.

As someone not obsessed with SATC, I read an article about what the show says about the overall evolution of women and marriage. Couldn't stand the blatant female stereotype present, which assumes that pregnancy is the be-all and end-all of the life of a fulfilled and happy woman. SATC eschews it, yet this article puts it to the fore -- and even finds the series at fault for not fretting over fertility! Newsweek hasn't redeemed itself yet, thanks to this week's "Revenge of the Nerdette," which elucidates that young women need not give up femininity to succeed in science and math. Thanks, Newsweek, for being so ahead of your time.

something must be wrong

“I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.'”
-- Kurt Vonnegut

I have finally realized I am happy. Things aren't necessarily great, but I can live with them. It doesn't matter if you win or lose but the company you keep and friends you make as you play the game.

May flew by, surprisingly. I found myself with a job that has potential if I think about it the right way. It's a different sort of publishing than I'm used to, yet publishing nonetheless, and it's for a great company where employees show loyalty and affection. (I'm sure all employees are somewhat bound to their employer, as I was to S&G, yet must also gripe about corporate identity, as I did with RH. My biggest gripe? Technical difficulties, so give me a Mac already.)

With the promise of a regular income, I went on a spending spree: I had been seriously considering purchasing a bicycle, as my old one is old, rusted, bent, broken, and bequeathed to my brother. (The clincher? Brooklyn's greenway.) I purchased a folding bike, this model, from a store literally across the street from the Wantaugh LIRR station; however when I picked it up a few days later it wouldn't fold, and I had to wait a few hours for a non-lemon to be found in the warehouse and assembled.

I also purchased new clothes for the job -- lost two sizes thanks to being a Pilates amateur -- and decided to take official Pilates classes to continue feeling better about myself. Rationalization for blowing at least $800 before my first paycheck: I'm investing in myself, and I'm fucking worth it.

I'm entitled to my happiness: binging, making out during Raiders of the Lost Ark, camping -- WTF!?! -- experimenting, consenting to re-start a serious but gray relationship, and enjoying a new friendship that feels ancient.

Yet part of me feels as if I don't deserve any of this; I am still the insecure, overweight, awkward person who feels out of touch from reality. My mind views my environment through a third eye: I'll be living my life, suddenly see the situation from a stranger's point of view, and over-analyze.

This is but a snapshot of an over-active mind: I am content at my desk, kind of knowing what to do; lost in spokes, gears, and wind when coasting down the Pulaski Bridge; focused on proper breathing, a type of meditation, when engaging my core; ecstatic when I catch a glimpse of my body in clothes that fit; rapt in seduction; and joyous when sharing history.

If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.