I hate the computer. It's addictive, and I'm weak and addicted. I need to just stop. I need to come to it only a couple times a week. And so I will. I'll post things I've written now, and then I'll go write. I'm bursting with words. Story words. Laters, blogger.

Life is good.

Last night, I not only cleaned my room (I had some spare time while cooking), but I cooked dinner for Lara and her mom before her mom left town, and as an excuse for Lara to hang out a little longer while dropping of my music. We had to memorize the end of one of the sections in Handel's Messiah, which we are performing on Dec. 3.

Anyway, the food was a yeast-bread made with wheat flour and italian seasonings, green beans poached in white wine (a Riesling) and olive oil with seasonings, and potatoes boiled and chopped large with minced red onion, olive oil, and sesame seeds heated in white wine vinegar (both vegetable dishes were chilled and excellent), and sliced avacado and cheese, with the remainder of the Riesling. I highly recommend the potato dish. Seriously easy: boil potatoes, then peel and dice, pour over top of them olive oil, minced red onion, sesame seeds and heated white wine vinegar, a little salt and pepper, and diced chives; stir, chill, then serve.

I have hit a slight slowing in my writing momentum. I've written several more scenes, mapped out at least half of the first book, and know what's going to happen in terms of the major plot through the rest of the first book. It will be a trilogy eventually. The problem: it has been months, more than a year in some cases, since I wrote some of these scenes, and I don't remember them well. They are all in random places. I need to print them all out (some aren't on the computer yet) and put them in a folder, ordered, so I know which blanks to fill, and then I need to start from the beginning and tie them all together, as far as I can go.

I know what Lara means when she says that I have to keep her from writing her own book or she'll become far too addicted to it. Our dancing is going well, but one hopeful lead to a performance venue was frustrated because we have to be hired by the venue and not by the band (who love us). [sighs and laughs] In terms of teaching, we start teaching swing on thursdays, which will be interesting, since I'm well ahead of most of the people there, but Lara is very far ahead of me, and we'll need to figure out our lesson plans so we don't contradict each other, and I'll have to learn lindy before we get to it. She wants (eventually, probably starting next semester) to watch videos each night, learn a move or two from the video solidly, and then have fun dancing, which will be awesome. We just have to get there [laughs].

Back to work. I have choir tonight, so I've only got a couple hours to work. Fun fun.

So it's my birthday, so I ought to blog and say hello and whatnot. The Indian food I cooked for friends yesterday was awesome. I made a double batch of cardamom ice cream from scratch. I only had 2 not 3 cups of heavy cream, so I used a big scoop of plain yogurt as well, and then it smelled like yogurt, so I through in the cinnamon flakes used to make the cinnamon water for the recipe, and it came out really well. Very cinnamon-cardamom. Though it was smoothie consistency not ice cream consistency by party time. This morning it was ice cream consistency however. [grins and shrugs] At the time, however, it was great, because we could dip the bread (naan) into it, since they both had yogurt and so complimented each other.

The Naan came out well too. simple recipe: four cups flour, two cups yogurt, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking powder. Sift the dry ingredients together, stir in the yogurt till stiff then knead longer (it was sooo sticky). Then roll it into a ball, put it in an oiled bowl with a damp cloth over it for an hour. Then, cut into 10 pieces, roll them out into tortillas, cook them in a non-stick (non-oiled) skilled a couple minutes to cook the bottom, then broil in the oven for a minute or two to make them swell up like balloons, and you're done. I already experimented by using 2 1/2 cups of white flour and 1 1/2 cups of spelt flour (which some lady in the store recommended for its flavor). Next time I'm going to try vanilla yogurt and see how it comes out. [laughs]

Lastly, the rice pilaf was excellent. Mine was a Currant and Almond Pilaf, but to make any rice pilaf, simply use a little butter and oil to sautée some ingredients (onion, garlic, ginger), then add the rice and seasonings (coriander, salt), sautée a couple more minutes, then add the rice and any other ingredients (currant raisins) you want to add to the "stewing" phase where the rice soaks up all the water while it simmers, then top with garnish (toasted almonds and sesame seeds).

Before dinner, we had fruit (sliced apple, orange, avacado), cookies from the store, and cheese cubes (Robusto with a strong cheddar-esque flavor that complimented the avacado, Morbier with a light flavor and a layer of vegetable ash between two layers of cheese, and Drunken Goat Cheese with a sharp flavor on the back of the tongue that was good unless you ate apple slices first). We all had tea with dinner, and afterward some went home for homework and Lara, Patricia, Chris and I went for a walk in the nearby park. mmm.

I'm in the process of cleaning my room right now, because I had covered my desk with papers and books and such to do laundry a couple days ago, and now I need to actually go through everything and put it where it needs to go. I'm listening to Blue October, and I want to read a book. Lorna Doone just had a fun revelation while I was standing in line at the post office [laughs]. I know, I'm a nerd. My bike is working out wonderfully as transportation. My jobs are going well, though the muscles on either side of my spine are very tired by the end of the day. I just joined a choir that will be performing Handel's Messiah on Dec. 3, with professionals hired for the solos. It should be fun. I'm done blogging, so I'll catch you laters. [smiles]

Wow, almost a month since I last posted. Several new things:

I am working 5 of 7 days as a waiter at Mattison's, a restaurant in a prime location that has street parties several times a month in the street in front of the restaurant and a farmer's market every saturday morning in the same place. I work the other two days at a small place called Nature's Way Cafe that would be great if the owner would focus it and respect his employees more. I work nights (I just started, so 3 days a week right now) at Two Senoritas, another small restaurant. I love working at Mattison's because all the customers are friendly and all the coworkers are friendly. I don't like working at Nature's Way, but I'm a sucker for people in need of help, and he desperately needs help. So far I have created an inventory sheet and cleared out the restaurant's attic. I'm still on the fence about Two Senoritas because the employees are cliquish and ignore me a lot and in terms of tables the job is mostly "fend for yourself", and in terms of the work, I am told to do things without having the work explained to me.

All that is on top of dancing, which Lara and I do frequently. We taught Tango at her school last tuesday, and we're teaching again this tuesday. This tuesday also starts choir, finally, so that's a good thing. Next tuesday we'll be teaching Swing I believe. We got to dance on stage at a Hispanic Cultural Month street festival, when the guitarists asked for dancers. She was wearing a great red dress and I all black, button up, red tie. It was great. We also performed Tango as part of the "pre-game" for Ringling's Homecoming this past Saturday. Being computer and art nerds, their Homecoming game was football on the computer, playing against another school. Who cares. We may start teaching dance classes at Nature's Way on Thursday evenings, if we can make it worth our time. We also may perform/teach some basic dance steps for this band that really liked our dancing last night.

I'm also getting a lot of reading done, here and there, losing sleep for books. I recommend Jane Eyre, Lorna Doone, and The Birthday of the World by Ursula K. Le Guin, and Stardust by Neil Gaiman. I highly recommend you avoid The Dreamers series by David and Leigh Eddings. The first was good, the second ok, and the third was unbearably painful, but I was addicted it and finished it anyway.

I'm enjoying it here in Florida, making friends and enjoying going out places. I'm addicted to Tai Iced Tea, though I rarely go out to eat, and when I do, it's rarely Tai. speaking of which, I need to eat and change. I go to my second job in half an hour. Laters.