on: grieving however tf you want

(originally written around 3pm today)

grief has been on my mind a lot lately. makes sense, given that this is the time of year when i go knee-deep into my feels because 4 of my favorite people died in february and march. today is actually the 21st anniversary of my father's death and i'm not really sure how i'm upright and functioning right now, tbh. i have definitely found myself on the verge of tears more than once today for no reason other than i miss my father, and my mother, and my brother, and my play auntie. all of them. fiercely. like, the pain is still kinda raw. surprisingly raw to me, even though i know enough to know that this time of year knocks me on my ass every single time and yet i find myself wanting to just dissolve into a puddle of my own tears and self-pity and bemoan the fact that almost all of the people i would walk through fire for are no longer around.

so, yeah. grief. y'know how people say that there's only one way to grieve and there's a distinct time period in which you're allowed to grieve. THAT IS BULLSHIT. it is complete and utter bullshit and i find myself getting riled up every time someone says it because it is so fucking false. we're all human, yes, but that does not mean that we're all wired to mourn and grieve the same exact way. some folks laugh through their tears because it's all they know how to do in that moment. others go completely silent. others still may hunker down and work and do all of the things in what appears to be a manic frenzy because that's their current coping mechanism. guess what? you and i have no say so whatsofuckingever on how they deal. none.

i really hope that, in my unfortunately long experience as a grief expert of sorts, i haven't inadvertently made y'all feel even worse than you already do by telling you that there's only one way to mourn someone or something. you are entitled to feel, or not feel, whatever you feel or not fell. everyone is different. every circumstance is different.

some examples for you. we held a wake for james the evening before his funeral. i don't remember crying much there, but i do remember marvin sapp's "never would've made it" coming on and carol and i, while involved in separate conversations, both calling for someone to turn that song off because we just couldn't handle it in that moment. after the wake, i met up with some friends at south loop club, where y'all had come through with balloons and brownies to help me feel better and i'm pretty sure a round of shots was involved. ok, possibly probably multiple rounds of shots, but you get my point. how dare i be out with friends knowing that i had to bury my brother the next day? what kind of mourning is that?

the same kind of mourning that had me hanging out with some of those same friends after james' burial. a friend's parents graciously offered their home as a gathering place, and so i found myself in northwest indiana surrounded by friends. i needed that, and god bless my friends for knowing me well enough to know that i'd need that and for giving me the space and ability to make that happen without having to vocalize it or organize it because i was not organizing a single solitary thing after all of the funeral preparations, thank you very much.

fast forward from 2009 to 2015. lori's funeral was on a sunday evening. i've written previously about how difficult that service was for me. i remember sitting in the choir stand after the funeral ended, bent over double and sobbing uncontrollably. i may or may not be tearing up as i'm typing this part. did i mention how i've been on the verge of tears off and on all day today? i'd sat in that choir stand next to or near lori for years when i was still an active choir member back in the day, and without asking anyone or saying anything, i decided to sit there during the funeral. it just felt right to me and i regret absolutely nothing about it.

anyway, there i was, seemingly inconsolable. i couldn't have moved in that moment if i wanted to. i remember a few folks just sitting there with me and passing me tissue once i started coming up for air, because they knew how much lori meant to me, to all of us, and that my breakdown was part of my process.

so of course i wound up at pippin's afterwards and drank as much jameson & ginger ale as i could physically tolerate. i don't quite remember how i got home after that, but i do remember one of my bartender boos asking if i wanted a regular sized drink or a "i had a bad day" drink, and me replying that i'd just come from a funeral and therefore i needed the most ginormous drink possible. i may have drank those cocktails from pint glasses that night. one of those drinks had grenadine added by accident because bartender boo wasn't paying attention, and i drank it anyway because feelings are the worst and so what if i was probably dehydrated from crying so much and couldn't remember if i'd actually eaten anything that day? grief does that, you know.

grief does lots of things. lots of different things. daddy died right before finals and therefore i tried to focus on finishing assignments and being ready to take exams once i got back to campus. i was staying with my oldest brother & his family, and i remember hearing him on the phone talking about how i hadn't broken down yet and how worried everyone was because i was, to their eyes, keeping everything on the inside. if you know about my family's dysfunctional tendencies, then it will come as no surprise that i was holding back around certain people because i knew i couldn't trust them to honor or respect my feelings or that they wouldn't know how to deal with whatever i'd decided to share.

no big shock, then, that i fell apart at daddy's grave site. i remember someone from the army presenting james with a flag in honor of daddy's military service. i looked over at james and the tears were just streaming down his face, and i honestly think i blacked out at that point. next thing i knew, i was sitting in a car with lori, appropriately enough, and another one of my aunts, i think, and being told to take some deep breaths. to this day, i don't know how i got from the gravesite and into that car. i don't know how long it took or how far away the car was or how long i was out of commission. i'd ask james or lori about it, but...well.

is it any wonder that i get irrationally angry whenever someone says that you must grieve or mourn a certain way and/or for a certain time period? my mother has been dead for 34 years as of march 1 and if you'd like to tell me that i should be over it by now, please meet me outside so i can fight you we can discuss this like mature adults. sure, there are days/weeks/months when the pain isn't as acute or fresh, but let's not pretend that everything is always puppies and kittens and unicorns and tacos and whiskey. it's not true for me and, if we're honest, it's not really true for any of us.

grief sucks. it's weird and complicated and the rules are ever evolving and changing even though grief itself seems to be a constant in our lives. it feels like it's never going to go away. sometimes it doesn't, really. sometimes, grief just shrinks enough so you can continue trying to live your life the best way you know how, but it's still there and will occasionally tap you on the shoulder like "o hai! let's have a good crying session at a really inopportune time because i'm an asshole!"

grieve however you want. whenever you want. anyone who says you have to get over it within a certain time frame is also invited to meet me outside so i can fight them we can discuss this like mature adults. if you're able to find some joy in the midst of your grief, whether it be enjoying the company of friends or remembering a lighthearted moment or going to a movie or just treating yourself because dammit you still deserve nice things, even better. if you're able, surround yourself with the people and/or things that you think will help you. if you'd rather get through it solo and just update folks when you're able to think coherently long enough to send a text or tweet or email, that works too. the world is going to shit, yes, but some semblance of it will still be around when you get back.

as always, i'm around if you want to talk/cry/scream/vent about or through your mourning, of if you just want some company while you sit silently, or if you want/need me to play enabler and help you eat and/or drink your feelings away, or whatever. selfish as it sounds - and maybe this is why people have a hard time dealing with folks who are grieving - this is about you and what you need to get through. it's definitely a "your mileage may vary" situation. what has worked for me may not work for you, and that's ok. you might not know exactly how to feel, or you may feel guilty that you're not feeling enough, and that is also ok. take a deep breath if you're able to, because sometimes breathing is hard when everything hurts and you just want to be still and not feel anything...not that i know anything about that whatsoever. nope, not me. totally well-adjusted and normal over here! 😜

reach out to your support system in whatever form that looks like for you. go online or use social media if it's easier/better than dealing with folks in real life. if anyone comes at you in a malicious way, ask them to meet me outside so i can fight them.

love y'all to the moon and back. keep trying to treat yourself the best way you know how. you deserve nothing less. 💜

85

my father would've been 85 years old today. if you've been around for a while, then you know that his birthday tends to be a rough day for me. hell, this stretch of february through mid-march does a number on me every year, what with all of the death anniversaries and birthdays and accompanying feels. my therapist actually brought it up a couple of sessions ago, and i realized that i'd been so busy and so focused on getting through january (seriously, january was like the longest month ever for a lot of us, right?) that i hadn't even turned my attention to february and march.

but here we are. daddy would've been 85 today. the last time i saw him alive was on this date 21 years ago. holy shit. does that count as a lifetime ago? sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago, and there are other moments where the pain still feels as fresh as i did when i got the call that he was dead.

i try not to dwell on how my life would be different if he was still alive. instead, i wonder if he'd be proud of me. if he'd support the decisions i've made along the way, even if he didn't understand them. i like to think he would. that he'd realize that he gave me the tools to navigate through life and how to adjust when things didn't go quite according to plan.

i hope he knows that. if heaven exists, i hope he knows that he did the best he could and that i'm doing the best i can.

i wish this for all of you, really. that the people you care about - family, parents, friends, role models - know that you are doing the best you can with what you have. and if you don't feel like you're doing the best you can, that's ok, too. doing the work is hard work sometimes, but we keep trying. that's the victory in it, i think: that we keep trying.

#attitudeofgratitude, valentine's day edition

hey, remember back in 2012 when i was absolutely miserable on valentine's day? god, that was awful. i'm writing this in my own apartment, on my new laptop that i purchased about 2 weeks ago with my work bonus. my candy bowl is pretty well stocked at the moment, even though it's the day before payday. hell, there was enough money left in my account for me to splurge on getting dinner delivered tonight. i actually did my taxes while i was waiting on said food delivery and finished right before my food arrived, so yay for that.

don't get me wrong. there is still a lot going on that needs to be fixed or even addressed, given that i'm writing this mere hours after yet another school shooting. i know i can't fix everything and/or everyone, but i can at least give thanks for the little bit of good i'm experiencing at any particular time. i think that helps when i'm feeling bombarded by/with all of the feelings.

3 years later...

lori died 3 years ago today. it still hurts. a lot. so much has changed and so much has happened and not being able to pick up the phone and call her about it sucks. i went back in the archives and reread what i wrote after her funeral and i still stand by it. if heaven exists, i hope auntie lori's there having the best time possible.

recipe review: cranberry-balsamic chicken thighs

if you're like me, you rarely think about cooking with cranberries until the holiday season. even then, i don't usually make cranberry sauce because i can honestly take it or leave it most of the time. kinda odd, then, that this recipe struck enough of a chord for me to add it to my files and make it for dinner a few nights ago. it may have also helped that the only ingredient i needed to buy was the cranberries (i used frozen ones that i thawed in the fridge).

i used about a 1/4 teaspoon of dried thyme instead of fresh, and eyeballed the salt and pepper as usual. not sure if i'd make this one again, to be honest. it wasn't bad, but i felt like it needed something. maybe some garlic? i know - for once, i didn't add any garlic to a recipe and that may have been the game changer. i still have 1/2 a bag of frozen cranberries left, along with some more chicken thighs, so unless i figure out something else out to do with the cranberries, i may end up making this again after all.

recipe review: sausage and sweet pepper hash

whole foods had various flavors of organic chicken sausage on sale a few weeks ago, so i bought a few to keep in the freezer. one of the flavors just happened to be chicken & apple, so when i came across this recipe, i realized i could make it for weekday breakfasts.

i used about a 1/2 teaspoon each of dried thyme and dried tarragon, because i wasn't interested in buying whole packages of fresh herbs when i only needed a couple teaspoons of each. i also added about a 1/2 teaspoon each of kosher salt and garlic powder, because i found the omission of both of those ingredients to be a bit odd.

i used the high setting because i was making it on a saturday night while doing laundry and i wanted to be able to put everything away before i went to bed. if i make this again, i'd adjust the timing once the peppers go in, because mine were still a bit on the crunchy side after the allotted 15 minutes. that, or i'd add the peppers a bit earlier so the potatoes don't turn into complete mush.

on: powering through, maintaining, being resilient, etc.

one of the things i have been trying to work on with regards to managing my anxiety is focusing on the things i can actually control. there will always be things out there that scare me. that i can't do anything about. that i can't fix. it's ok to acknowledge those things as they, more frequently than i would like, pop up.

the goal, though, is to continue doing what i can, where i can, and how i can. sometimes, it's doing enough meal prep to not have to think about food options for a few days. or writing my elected officials and/or other politicians/decision makers about my thoughts on an issue. or making donations, however small, to causes and organizations i trust and believe in so i can support their work.

sometimes it feels like i'm not doing enough. like i'm not being a good enough friend. like i'm not contributing enough or being supportive enough or communicative enough or peacefully silent enough. i can recognize that this can be a function of my anxiety playing tricks on me - that whatever i do won't be good enough and therefore i should just shut down and do nothing - but holy fuck is it an ever-constant battle.

i don't necessarily want to peel back all of the layers and let y'all see all the messiness in all of its glory. that's part of what therapy is for, right? 😀

but part of the deal i made after my last bout with suicidal thoughts was to open up. to admit when shit wasn't sweet. not that i always do this, mind you, but i'm trying to be better about it.

looking back, i'm not quite sure how i got through the 2nd half of 2017 as (relatively) well as i did. that whole moving twice in 6 months and having to convince myself that yes, i could take these steps and continue reestablishing myself just about broke me. i still can't believe i didn't plan anything for my birthday. i was tired and overwhelmed and the part of my brain that deals with logistics and planning was just like "NOPE" and i had to go with that. plus work kicked my ass during those past 6-8 months and since so much of what i do depends on logistics and planning and project management, i had to stay focused on that to make sure i had a job that would pay the rent and not have me feeling like i'd gotten in over my head.

anxiety is weird like that, y'know? it can make you forget that you're capable of setting goals and achieving them. at some point last year, i said i wanted my work bonus to be enough so i could get a new laptop. not only will that bonus be sufficient, even after taxes, but the raise that came with it means that i am still making more than i ever have in my career to date and that my efforts haven't been in vain.

it'd be easy to say that this is all possible because i did the work. let's be clear about all of the work that entails, though. it's about somehow finding the energy to do my job on those days when i just wanted to stay home and sleep. or cry. or both. having to remind myself that rent had been paid and i wasn't on the verge of eviction (real talk: i still occasionally look around this apartment - as i did in the last one - in disbelief that it's mine and i'm fiscally responsible enough to keep it). reminding myself that i had the space, both physical and mental but more so physical, to come home and do whatever i wanted or needed to get me through to the next days. of having days of powering through my anxiety and realizing i shouldn't have pushed as hard. of trying to honor when a part of me said i needed to sit down and stop doing all of the things. (i still fuck this one up. a lot.) of feeling so much emotional pain because so many people i care about are going through so many things and not really know what else to do but to get up and go to work. of sneaking off to the bathroom to cry because the anxiety was too much but i couldn't go home because fuck letting anxiety win that day.

and here i am. a whole entire brand new year staring me in the face. i don't have any resolutions per se. i want to keep doing what i can, where i can, and how i can. i want to continue meeting people where they are and, if circumstances dictate, leave them there. i want to keep going, not necessarily out of optimism but sheer stubbornness because i know there's more and i want to be a part of it somehow. i want to keep weeping both when my friends do well and when things go wrong for them. i want to make sure that all of this work hasn't been in vain.

amen.

recipe reviews: turkey tenders and proscuitto-wrapped pork with sweet potatoes and pears

these recipes jumped out at me when i was attempting to come up with ideas for things to cook once i got back in town, and i made both of them friday night as meal prep for this week.

the tenderloin i bought for the turkey tenders was about 1.25 pounds and was already separated into two pieces. i didn't get 20 slices out of it because i wasn't really measuring the pieces that closely. i had eggs on hand so i used 2 beaten eggs with maybe a tablespoon of water instead of the egg substitute. i used a mixture of garlic powder and kosher salt since i didn't have garlic salt. since the turkey pieces wound up on the large side, i cooked them a bit longer both on the stove top and in the oven - maybe 3-4 minutes per side on the stove and 8-10 minutes per side in the oven - to make sure they were cooked through. i've been using these as part of my breakfast with whatever side dishes may be in the fridge and i would totally make it again.

i had a couple of pork tenderloins in the freezer already and i have been trying to figure out how i feel about pears since i don't eat them that often, so trying this dish out seemed like a no-brainer. also i love sweet potatoes and prosciutto, so why not? i bought the pears a few days before i made this and they were no longer firm, which made cutting and baking them a bit of a challenge. definitely use firm pears for this one, folks. i think i set the timer for 25 minutes once i added the pork tenderloin and it came out damn near perfect. this has been my dinner for the past couple of nights (i added a salad tonight because i felt like i needed a salad in my life, lol) and if i can't think of anything to do with the remaining pork tenderloin in the freezer, i might break this back out.

recipe review: orecchiette with bacon, black-eyed peas, and spinach

merry new year!

i spent the last few days of 2017 (and the 1st day of 2018) out of town hanging out with friends and drinking wine. and beer. and whiskey. i think a moscow mule may have also been consumed at some point. hey, i was on vacation and i didn't have to worry about transportation, so all bets may have been off. yes, more than normal. don't judge me.

before i left, i spent a little time going through recipes to figure out what i wanted to make once i got back in town. i'm not always around or able to eat collards and black-eyed peas as my first meal of the new year, so i've adapted the tradition so that the first meal i actually cook in the new year involves those 2 ingredients somehow. i also try to make a new (to me) recipe every year, which has nothing to do with tradition and everything to do with continuing my way through the hundreds of recipes i've amassed.

when i came across this recipe in my files, i knew i could adapt it for my purposes. i bought a 16oz bag of frozen collard greens before my trip, because i figured finding fresh collards upon my return might be difficult, plus the thought of cleaning said greens was more than i could handle after a long train trip and work and unpacking and everything else. i probably should've picked up some frozen black-eyed peas while i was at it, since there were no frozen or canned peas to be found at jewel yesterday. i did find some "quick cooking" black-eyed peas in the produce section that promised to be ready in less than 15 minutes, so i went with a pack of those. i think the package was 12oz, maybe? i did a quick sort and followed the directions and sure enough, the peas were ready as promised.

if you know me, then you know that following a recipe's directions for garlic is not something i normally do. this one called for 1 large garlic clove, thinly sliced. i used 3 garlic cloves that i minced in my garlic press instead and cooked them with the cayenne pepper (maybe a 1/4 teaspoon instead of the 1/2 teaspoon? i can't remember right now) for maybe a minute or so until the garlic smelled delicious and had gotten a bit golden brown.

i added approximately half the bag of collards (which i'd taken out to thaw while boiling the water for both the peas and the pasta) and added them to the pasta about halfway through the cooking time. i wound up stirring the cooked bacon into the pasta mixture, since i was planning on refrigerating all of it vs. serving it immediately.

i brought some for lunch today with some italian cheese blend i'd sprinkled on right before i covered and put everything away, and i was a very happy camper. i'll have another serving for lunch before the week is out and then decide if i can try to freeze it for future use. there's no real sauce per se so i don't know how the pasta will hold up, so i may not freeze all of it immediately.

'twas the night before my birthday...

...and i have absolutely nothing officially planned.

i know. i can't believe it either. i really think moving again broke my brain in a way that i just could not deal with any more logistics or planning or checklists. just thinking about organizing something was enough to send my anxiety levels sky-high, so for once i decided to listen to myself and not force anything. it's a bit weird, because y'all know there is usually an itinerary a mile long posted here with all of the events i'm attending and brunch plans and bar hopping and all of that, but not this year. the celebration, such as it is, will probably still go through mlk day because that's just how i roll.

the move went well, btw. the aforementioned anxiety led to my packing way more than i'd planned to, especially since my estimate was for the movers to pack and move everything because why the hell not if i was getting reimbursed for it? i did have them pack the kitchen stuff, though, but that was about it. they finished in less than 3 hours and my final amount was about half of the original estimate, so yay. i still can't believe i got everything unpacked that afternoon and made it to city winery for a concert that night.

i am slowly getting accustomed to this new space, though. the kitchen's big enough to fit my table and chairs (and the table just happens to coordinate with the kitchen counters, which is hilarious to me) and i have a dishwasher and built-in microwave and a gas stove, praise black jesus, because the electric stove at the old place gave me the occasional fit. i need to figure out some sort of living room seating at some point, but the way my bookcases and the tv are currently set up are appealing to me right now so who knows? shouts to built-in shelving in the living room so i can display my diplomas and some art and other random things i'd had packed away. oh, and the bathroom's new and not pink (if you saw the old one, then you understand), which is great.

it occurred to me this morning that this will be the first birthday i've spent in my own apartment since 2010. that almost induced the ugly crying that my therapist and i keep saying i'm going to indulge in at some point when i look over the events of 2017. that crying jag might still happen whenever i wake up tomorrow. who knows? there's a bottle of expensive scotch (and a couple of bottles of not so expensive stuff) on the counter waiting for me, and the bears were nice enough to lose today so i don't have to worry about watching them be pathetic tomorrow (thank you, scheduling gods), and holy shit i'll be 41 tomorrow. i have no idea what the coming year is going to bring, and part of me is amazed that i'm still around to witness whatever happens, so cheers to that.

recipe reviews: fish house sweet potato hash and apricot glazed bacon wrapped pork tenderloin

quasi-landlord emailed me this pork tenderloin recipe with a note saying that she had an extra jar of apricot preserves that i could have whenever i was ready to try this out. she also had some cajun seasoning that one of us had bought for a different recipe, but she didn't like it as much as some other brand she had so the seasoning came home with me. i had dijon mustard on hand but it wasn't the grainy kind, because jewel was out of small jars of grainy dijon and i wasn't about to go traipsing hither and yon for something that i only needed a tablespoon of for this recipe. i used a 12-inch cast iron skillet and i think i'd have better results on a gas stove and/or if i wasn't cooking a few other things while this was on the stove top. the flavors are great, but the bacon wasn't as brown/crispy as i thought it should be. i'd make it again if i happen to catch pork tenderloin on sale or just had one in the freezer that i wanted to make use of.

i overbaked the sweet potatoes for this hash, which was annoying because the resulting texture wasn't really what i wanted. i probably should've checked the potatoes after 40 minutes or so in the oven, but in my defense, the potatoes i had were kinda large and so i figured they'd need the full hour. oops. i used 1/2 teaspoon each of dried thyme and sage because no way was i buying fresh herbs when i only needed a teaspoon or two of them. the garlic cloves i had were on the large side, so i only used 2. this is a great side dish and i would make it again, keeping an eye on the sweet potatoes as they're baking so they're still kinda firm.

sad sunday into melancholy monday

o hai, it me, still recovering emotionally from yesterday's church shooting. i'm glad i was at home when the news broke, so i could just go back to bed and cry for a bit after i did a mini-thread on twitter, because i'm not sure i could've handled being out in public and trying to hold it together. as it was, i wound up at a couple of my regular haunts in the evening and definitely wasn't feeling my usual sunday funday self. i totally woke up around 3am today because i was having a nightmare. it was frustrating because i knew when i went to bed that i was feeling more susceptible than usual to nightmarish thoughts thanks to the shooting, but i couldn't get my brain to skip over them so i could try to rest. luckily, it's been relatively quiet at work (where i wrote this originally) today so i can continue trying to get my shit together.

during my last visit, i told my therapist that i am trying to be better about focusing on the things i can actually control. there's no off switch i can flip for my empathy, but i can try to hone in on actionable things, be they big or small, that i can actually do something about. it doesn't always work and my anxiety is still on a trillion, but sometimes it helps me if i can cross off one or two things that i have some say over.

i also told her that i still find myself wishing for some semblance of normalcy in my life. that it feels like nothing in the past decade or so has really gone the way i thought it would. that i'm really frustrated by how little control i have over some things and the things i can actually control don't play out the way i want them to or think they should and then i find myself wondering why i even bother.

like the whole moving back into my own place thing. some of y'all know that my apartment building was sold, unbeknownst to me, as i signed a lease and started moving in back in june. the now-current management company told me upfront that my lease wouldn't be renewed in the spring, and then made a paltry offer if i decided to break my lease and move by, say, october. to my credit, i didn't laugh in their faces (seriously, the initial offer was ridiculous and wouldn't have covered nearly enough of my moving expenses).

a few weeks ago, i ran into some of the management staff on my day off and found out that the construction they'd already started on some of the vacant units was going to be ramped up after the end of november. keep in mind that my lease runs through may 2018. i still wasn't all that worried - i work monday-friday from 9-5(ish) so if the construction's happening during the day, i didn't think it'd be all that inconvenient. "but there'll be water shutoffs, and power outages, and we can't guarantee that everything will be working every night when you get home."

then they brought up a potential lease buyout and moving assistance, which was closer to what i wanted to hear if they really wanted me to move before the end of my lease. what nailed it for me was hearing that i would be the last tenant standing, so to speak, after the end of november. we all know that i'm the queen of the universe and have a tough demeanor and all, but nothing about being the only person living in a building where contractors and other folks i don't know are going to be in and out sat well with me. it still doesn't, to be honest. it's like the hairs on the back of my neck stand up whenever i think about it.

so the apartment search has begun, again, and i am getting annoyed with listings that don't provide address information (not even cross streets!) or photos, again, and my anxiety is back through the roof again because what if these new management companies take a look at my credit and laugh themselves silly while pocketing my application fees?

i'm trying to stay focused, though. i went on a few showings this weekend and found one in my current neighborhood and budget that doesn't suck. i am still hammering out the details of this move-out agreement with my current management company because if i'm going to move for the 2nd time in 6 months, i want them to shoulder as much of the financial and logistical brunt of it as possible. of course some intriguing units are popping up in my old neighborhood now that i've been spoiled by my shorter work commute, so i may check one or two of them out just to see if they're viable.

part of me can't help but to laugh at all of this, because why would anything in my life proceed normally and according to plan. i visited quasi-landlord a couple of weeks ago because i was totally freaking out and i knew she could help me see reason or at least help me start thinking about things in a rational way. she helped me clarify what i want, what i'm willing to work with/accept, and, god bless her, offered to take me back in if this current plan doesn't work out so i can save money and move back out in the springs when there are more listings to choose from. i don't plan on that happening, but i really do love her for making the offer.

i keep saying to myself, and to my therapist, and to the friends i've talked to off-line about this, that things will work out because they have to. i may not have the how or when nailed down yet, but they are going to work out because there's no choice. i am going to make things work out because i really don't know any other way to operate. sometimes, i really wish there was another way for me to function, though. maybe i wouldn't be as anxious or feel like i have to keep everything moving because the alternative is to fall flat on my face.

recipe reviews: curried chicken stew and sausage-and-potato pan roast

i knew i had a relatively empty schedule saturday morning/afternoon, so it was a perfect time for me to get a bit of meal prep done for the coming week. for breakfast, i revisited off this sausage & cheese scramble recipe that i've made off and on for years. i had two entrees in mind for lunch and dinner. this curried chicken stew was dinner for tonight and will likely be dinner for the rest of the week. i skipped all the garnishes and i think i'd add a bit more coconut milk if i made this again. i have a 4 quart crockpot and set it for 4 hours on high, turning everything off after about 3.5 hours. oh, and i seasoned the chicken with salt and pepper before browning it, and added a minced garlic clove to the carrots & onion.

the sausage and potato pan roast will probably be used for lunches this week. i had a few bites yesterday and tonight and i like where the flavors are going. i didn't have any lemons on hand but i did have a lime, so i used that instead. i opted to peel the shallots instead of leaving them unpeeled as directed by the recipe, because i didn't want to have to worry about peeling them after the fact.

recy taylor is still alive

(TW: rape)

every year, i say i'm going to be better about planning my chicago international film fest schedule, and every year, the fest sneaks up on me and i feel like i have to scramble to get tickets for the films i really want to see.

"the rape of recy taylor" was one of the films on my list for this year. i no longer remember who recommended "at the dark end of the street" to me, but i remember reading it and being fascinated. here was rosa parks, years before the bus boycott, working to help fellow black women get justice in an environment that couldn't even fathom such a thing for such a people. and here was recy, daring to stand up and speak up about what had happened to her, consequences be damned.

needless to say, i was in tears within the first 10 minutes of the movie. sadness, yes, but also anger. knowing that so many of us are still dealing with and healing from all kinds of trauma. that shit like this still happens with what feels like impunity. that no one believes us when we say "this is a thing that happened to me." i caught myself on the verge of kicking the chair in front of me, which i hadn't done since i watched "fruitvale station" in the theater and cried so much that i gave myself a migraine.

but then.

y'all.

recy taylor is still alive.

at the end of the film, we see and hear from recy directly and i am getting weepy just typing about it right now. i remember thinking to myself that i'd just managed to pull it together and then recy comes on screen and holy waterworks, batman. i apparently had cried so much during the movie that, on our way out, a woman nearby asked if i was going to be ok. i'm sure my eyes were red and my face was all blotchy. i wound up taking a lyft home from the theater because i was emotionally drained and i wasn't sure i could make it home on public transit. i think i wound up going to bed insanely early that night, too.

worth it, though.

and then this piece from bitch landed in my inbox this morning. i saw "marshall" (for free!) a week before it opened in theaters, thanks to a screening hosted by my employer, and a lot of the thoughts/feelings i had about the movie are addressed in that essay.

this is what happens when you read a lot, i suppose. at the "marshall" screening, i was surrounded by people who admitted that they didn't know much about thurgood marshall. i was at an advantage because i'd read this biography which, if memory serves, mentions the case that the movie focuses on. i could totally be wrong about that, but i remember watching the movie in a "well, of course this is what happens" kind of way. people left the screening waxing poetic about how much they'd learned and i felt like maybe i wasn't the target demographic for the movie, lol. absurd, of course, given that the director and producer were in my employer's nyc office urging all of us to take our book clubs and sororities and church groups and families and friends to see the movie when it opened. (i didn't, obviously. my review can be summed up like this: i'm glad i saw it for free.)

i suppose this could be chalked up to the difference between a documentary and a mainstream feature, maybe. that maybe there's more room in documentaries to flesh out stories that need to be told, even if your audience has read or is at least familiar with the source material.

speaking of documentaries: please plan on watching "sighted eyes/feeling heart" when it airs on pbs next year. i've seen three movies at the international film festival and this lorraine hansberry doc is my favorite so far. also i realized that i still get emotional when i see ruby dee and/or ossie davis on screen. sigh.

recipe review: meal prep edition

around this time last saturday, give/take a couple of hours, i was sitting down at the table after spending 2 hours in the kitchen prepping food for the coming week. it paid off because i didn't have to cook anything and i still have a little bit of food left that i will probably use for breakfast early next week. here's what i made:

i'm kinda obsessed with these mini frittatas. you might remember that after i made them the first time, i said that i'd try them again with pancetta and possibly some red bell pepper, and that's what i did. a 1/4 lb. of diced pancetta, 1 red bell pepper, and some shredded mozzarella and parmesan cheeses. i think i should've used a bit more black pepper, but otherwise i was happy. next time around, i may try them with some bacon sausage and broccoli or some other vegetable. maybe mushrooms? i dunno. i know i had breakfast set for the week and it was nice to not worry about what i was going to eat first thing in the morning.

next up was a roasted sweet potato and black bean salad. i used a spinach and arugula blend for the salad greens and this was my lunch all week. there were a couple of days when i went down to the cafeteria at work and bought some diced chicken and/or turkey because i felt like i needed some additional protein. i'd probably scale back on the mint because it got to be a bit overwhelming for me.

i found a recipe for maple-glazed chicken from this cookbook and realized i hadn't made it in ages, if ever, so this also happened. again, i'd scale back on the mint (or use basil instead). i think my chicken pieces were too large, so i'd probably adjust that as well. 

i'd never cooked with escarole before i made this, so i had no idea how much the escarole would shrink/wilt - it's like spinach in that regard. i may try a variation of it with collard greens for my new year's day* meal. this is the dish that i still have a little bit of in the fridge that will probably be re-purposed for breakfast/lunch next week.

earlier in the day, i'd made a batch of this punch with "regular" orange juice and had it with sparkling cider. i'd definitely try it again with sparkling wine.

i was exhausted by the time i was done cooking and cleaning, but in my defense, i'd been up since 6am and was running on fumes anyway. this past week was super busy and it definitely worked in my favor to not have to worry about what i wanted to eat, except for sunday when i wound up stopping for food because i didn't want anything i'd made the night before. :P

my dear miss sharon jones

i haven't been feeling 100% lately. i've been in and out of migraine hell since friday, and my brain keeps doing that thing where i have ALL OF THE THOUGHTS about subjects that i don't really need to ponder all that much and then i can't focus on what really needs my attention. this morning, i woke up out of a nightmare around 5am and felt another headache coming on. if that wasn't bad enough, said nightmare sent me down a mental rabbit hole of things that happened back when i was in high school and led to a slew of anti-epiphanies. this is not an optimal way to start a morning, let me tell you. i really could've used that time to sleep, instead of tossing and turning and trying to get my brain to settle down.

needless to say, being at work today was challenging, especially since i have a giant project going into production tomorrow and therefore it's been a lot of emails and calls and IMs and feeling like i'm juggling 5011 balls in the air while simultaneously herding 5011 cats.

i got back to my desk after a meeting this morning and decided to catch up on instagram before i settled back into work. this post about sharon jones' forthcoming album broke me. i didn't actually cry at my desk, but i came pretty damn close. i did the math on the release date and realized the album will be out right before thanksgiving, which means i can spend the holiday eating and drinking my feelings with this as my soundtrack. is it weird that i'm looking forward to having time off around thanksgiving because i may just decide to veg out the whole time? no? good.

recipe review: broccoli and bacon muffin tin frittatas

i like having breakfast in the morning. i don't necessarily like making breakfast in the morning, but i like eating it. i don't always want to spend money on breakfast before heading to work, either, so that means i'm either having leftovers or something else on hand for breakfast.

this recipe appealed to me because i love broccoli and bacon and hell yeah i can have breakfast on hand for a few days and not have to think about it . sign me up! i had frozen organic broccoli florets on hand, so i pulled out a 16oz bag of those and thawed them in the fridge overnight. i had a triple cheddar blend in the fridge along with a bit of gouda, so i used both because cheese is delicious.

i'm already thinking of making these again, but maybe with pancetta instead of bacon. not sure what veggie(s) i'm going to use yet, but i'll think of something.

recipe review: slow-cooker kielbasa and white bean cassoulet

i think i'd put this recipe in one of my "try making this soon" piles because i knew i had smoked sausage in the freezer that i could use in place of the kielbasa. i used great northern beans because those were the only dried white beans available at jewel when i went. i sorted and rinsed the beans before they went into the pot. i think i used 3 cloves of garlic instead of 2, and i used about a 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme because the hell with buying fresh thyme if i only need 2 teaspoons of it. i set the slow cooker for 7 hours on low and hot damn did those beans come out perfectly tender. i'm sure i'll revisit this later in the fall or winter.

recipe review: thai turkey lettuce cups

i had a pound of ground turkey in the freezer that, i swear, was starting to openly mock me every time i looked at it. i didn't want to make pasta sauce with it, or meatballs, or any of the usual ideas, but inspiration was not all that forthcoming.

then i started reading the latest issue of cooking light, saw this recipe, and decided i could skip the lettuce cups part and just make the turkey and sauce mixture because i knew i already had everything i needed on hand! it turned out, though, that i only have dark brown sugar and not light brown sugar, but i wasn't going to let that stop me.

i am so making this again. i'm sure it'd be great with ground chicken as well. i ate it with steamed veggies and some brown rice and was quite pleased. it'll probably be a good meal to make for weekday lunches as well, either with veggies and/or rice or as a topping/added protein for a salad.

recipe review: sausage and kale stew with olive oil mashed potatoes

i'd had my eye on this recipe for a while, actually. once i remembered that i had a pound of "ground"/"loose" italian sausage in the fridge, i realized the time was right to try this one out.

i used 3 garlic cloves (shocking, i know) and reduced the water from 1 cup to about 3/4 cup. i have a 4-quart slow cooker, so i knew that using more water would make this more soupy than i wanted. instead of the ~7 cups of kale called for, i used a package of this kale blend and it worked out great. i set the timer for about 7.5 hours on low and the potatoes were perfectly tender when i took them out to mash them.

i'm not sure i'd make the mashed potatoes with olive oil again, though. it was my first time using olive oil in mashed potatoes and the taste and consistency was a bit different than i'm used to. the stew was great, though, so i can totally see myself making it again.