Pinterest Project: Casserole Success

I have become addicted to Pinterest, like many others that I know, but for me it's mainly because I like seeing what other people are into. If I happen to find something of interest to me, that's just an added bonus. I embarked on a bit of a home improvement project a little over a month ago and took some ideas from Pinterest. Some turned out (invisible bookshelves), others did not (dyeing mason jars). Now I'm focusing on recipes. Cooking for one gets a little mundane, as I tired easily of eating chicken and vegetables five or six days out of the week.

Sunday night I took a 3-Meat Pizza Casserole recipe and adapted it a little bit. Here's the original recipe.

It supposedly turned out like this:

I did not use any meat aside from the pepperoni, and I also decided to forgo the vegetables as well. Not that I'm against vegetables. It's just that too much cheese, onions, and garlic together...let's just say it doesn't end well. So my "casserole" was more like baked pasta with pepperoni, but it is pretty delicious. Here's what mine turned out like:

I have eaten four meals out of this already, and still have probably two servings left. The only problem is that I have WAY more pepperoni than one person can ever need, so let's hope it's a while before that stuff goes bad, or I will be throwing like six bucks down the drain.

If anybody has any recipe suggestions, please send them my way. I'm currently trying to find something to do with an avocado, aside from just putting it in my salad.

Writing Update

I said I was going to make myself write, and I've really been doing it. I have about 5600 words - 10% of the way to an acceptable novel length! Woot! And I'm trying to look at the positives too, aren't you proud of me? 10% finished rather than 90% left to go. For some reason, the story that I have now is just flowing out of me like crazy. In fact, I've written a lot of it by hand and typed it up later after I got to a computer. I'm not ready to reveal any information, because the story is not cohesive at all yet. But I have a lot of it sort of mapped out in my head. I just have to get everything in the right order. Right now, the story consists of several vignettes that I will weave together once I get the main plot points written up. They say to write what you know, and I guess there's a part of me in each of my protagonists, but I think this time is a little different. My protagonist is female, but she's married, eventually with children, and she is all about being a housewife. I mean, she loves it. Probably part of me wants those things, but that life isn't what I know at all, so that's a step in the right direction, I think. Most of the time, my "heroines" are post-college moaners, but I feel like this time I've moved on to a character with a real problem, rather than one that goes through life all "woe is me" all the time.

I have trouble with linear thinking, so that's why I've ended up just working up the story in chunks. It allows me to get to the issues, and then I can add in the filler (description of appearances, locations, that sort of thing) later. Plus, that makes it easier when it comes time to decide if I'm having a straight beginning to end story, or if I want to work in flashbacks, or if it's going to be a story with the end as the beginning, and then going back and building up the backstory.

I know I'm not the kind of writer that's going to end up with a Pulitzer some day, but if I can churn out one decent story that people want to read, that would make me really happy.

Triple Feature Movie Review

With the recent re-emergence of Burns and Allen in my life, I decided to order myself an early birthday present and get some B&A merchandise I've had my eye on for quite some time. One of these is a triple feature DVD of Burns & Allen films. (If I could find all of their early film shorts on DVD, I think I would literally shit myself.) Since I've decided to write more, I will occasionally do book, movie, or album reviews here to build my repertoire. I used to do a weekly feature on a music forum I frequented, but I haven't been on there for years and I would love to start doing reviews again.

The first film on this triple feature DVD is a movie called Here Comes Cookie from 1935. Gracie plays the ditsy daughter of a very rich man who decides that in order to protect his fortune from a gold-digger that is courting his other daughter, he must sign his money over to Gracie. Mr. Allen agrees to let Phyllis marry this suitor if, with falsely generated word that Mr. Allen has gone broke, he sticks by her side despite Daddy no longer being a possible meal ticket. Things begin innocently enough, with Gracie deciding to assist with the homelessness problem in New York by offering free room and board to unemployed actors (who apparently consisted of the majority of the city's homeless population at the time). Gracie instructs the butler to start cutting up their clothes in order to make them look like vagrants. Hearing about the new financial arrangement, her sister Phyllis's beau decides to pursue Gracie, sending a fortune teller to set up their meeting by telling her when, where, and how she will meet the man of her dreams. Meanwhile, her father finally enjoying his retirement in North Carolina on mere pennies a day, until Phyllis arrives to reveal Gracie's inanities and urge him to return home. When they arrive, Gracie has had the home reconstructed into a theater to put on a show with her new actor friends, at the insistence of her new fiancé, who has concocted the theatrical production as a means of embezzling the money without having to actually marry either daughter. The play is a riotous disaster, and this leads to the swift but pleasant ending. The suitor and his accomplice get locked in the box office, while Gracie gets offered a job as a movie producer. Cops get thieving suitor; Pops gets his piece of mind back by getting his wacko daughter out of his hair. Cue credits.

The movie is full of Vaudeville acts, ones that are unrecognized today but I'm sure would have been known by audiences at the time. (Many of them go uncredited as well.) George Burns is on hand to be befuddled by Gracie's antics as her father's legal advisor. Gracie is a delight through and through. She's thin and bright-eyed, and you can't keep your eyes off of her. She's quite agile as well, performing a cute little Latin-inspired song and dance number during the show within a show. Her voice is airy and lilting, and she appears as light as air on her feet. The movie contains a few pratfalls as well. It's is entertaining but very brief, and it feels more like a showcase for Gracie's talents than a movie with an actual plotline.

Film number two is a road trip comedy called Six of a Kind, also starring Charlie Ruggles, Mary Boland, and W.C. Fields. The Whinneys are about to set off on a cross-country trip to celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary. The wife decides to take out an ad in the paper offering to share the ride with another couple in an attempt to save money. George and Gracie answer the ad, much to the chagrin of the husband. They take off for California with Gracie's Great Dane in tow. Calamity ensues. The older couple's plans for a second honeymoon are further thwarted when, finding out George and Gracie aren't married, they don't even get to share a room together on their trip. In the meantime, a bank co-worker of Mr. Whinney's stays in hot pursuit of the foursome. It seems he decided to embezzle $50,000 from the bank and pin it on Whinney, thinking he could place the money in Whinney's suitcase and retrieve the money from them along the way. Finally catching up to them in Nevada, the embezzler gets caught by the local sheriff (Fields), who is tricked into thinking the embezzler is actually the embezzled. Detectives, who became aware of the Whinneys whereabouts when the couple ran out of cash and wired the bank for cash from the road, show up and the whole crazy scheme is revealed.

This film is another one with a speedy resolution, but the laughs along the way are worth it. Ruggles (who I instantly recognized) and Boland make a great little team, and the patter between George and Gracie is brilliant, as always. "You have an aunt that sees with her mouth?" "Yeah, she sees if her soup is cold." W.C. Fields doesn't show up until halfway through the movie, but he has a gut-busting scene involving a pool cue that he just can't seem to shoot straight. He also has a few funny zingers, including, "I'm as busy as a pickpocket at a nudist colony." This feature also has a nice special feature. It includes the original trailer!

The final movie in the set (Love in Bloom) features Dixie Lee (Mrs. Bing Crosby) and Joe Morrison in the lead roles. A young girl whose family are carnival people decides she's had enough and runs away. Starting over in the big city, she meets an aspiring songwriter. They both get a job working at a music store, where they fall in love and decide to get married. George plays Dixie's brother, who brings his wife Gracie along in search of little sis. Their alcoholic pop has landed himself in jail again, and they need sis to bail him out. Unfortunately, once he's out of jail, Dad's mission is to bring his beloved daughter back home. She refuses at first, but when her father inadvertently crashes the wrong wedding while stone-cold drunk, she decides to go with him to save herself from further embarrassment. As the carnival travels the world, our budding songwriter finally gets published. Dad decides to let his daughter have her freedom after all, after acquiring a new business partner from New York, which turns out to be our songwriter. He basically paid for his lover's "freedom", but hey, the young-in-love couple gets to be together in the end and that's all that matters.

During an early scene, Gracie sings a little number called "Here Comes Cookie" (seems misplaced, huh?) while George stuffs cotton in his ears. This is reminiscent of one of their later running gags on their radio show where George randomly breaks out in song with great protestation from everyone around him (except Gracie). Aside from this, Gracie and George are onscreen for less than 1/3 of the movie. Lee and Morrison are decent enough actors and both have pleasant singing voices. On its own, the movie is fairly good, but the billing is misleading as this is not a Burns-Allen vehicle. Enjoyable enough, though.

For all three films, I'd give four out of five stars. One succeeds where the others fail, and for me, the presence of Burns & Allen made it worth the price of the disc.

This is me.

Many people would say that the end of the world is near. There are too many abominations, too many sins, for our world to survive much longer. Christians like to quote the book of Revelation to support this. But as someone who is constantly questioning the meaning of her existence, I think that our world is slowly making baby steps toward having the Promised Land right here on Earth. The oppressions that have existed for decades or even centuries feel like they are slowly being lifted.

For much of my life, I have felt like an outcast. There were times in my life when I was bullied by classmates for not being like them. The effect that had on my self-esteem has been incredibly difficult to overcome. In fact, it's something I still grapple with. I realize that the oppression I feel because of merely being different does not even come close to what gays or non-whites feel on a daily basis. Recently I have been doing a lot of thinking about this. I have spent much effort for most of my life concealing part of who I am to avoid judgment. It's tiring, constantly guarding what you say or do in front of certain people, all because you're afraid of what they might think. How much harder can someone make your life than you already are yourself just by being secretive? And how much affect do you have on the every day lives of other people that it necessitates your being so concerned about their opinions?

People's true colors come to light when scandal arises. The recent hoopla around Chick-fil-A has proven that. On Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, my Facebook news feed blew up with posts about people being so proud to support Chick-fil-A, or about how they would never eat there again because of the company's blatant anti-gay stance. Since when does the food we put in our bellies show our allegiance to political or social causes?

If you ever read my blog, you may or may not know anything about me. Even though this blog is about my feelings, I am not always totally open. In fact, I have realized recently that there are only two people in this world that I feel TRULY know me, 100%, and this makes me really sad. What is so bad about myself that I am afraid to be fully me? And if I feel this bottled up, how does someone gay and closeted even make it through the day?

Let me be blunt then. Here are some things about me: I curse like a sailor. I drink alcohol often. I've had the dreaded pre-marital sex. I support gay rights. I believe that abortion should be a woman's choice. I believe that people's religious beliefs and sexual orientation are not anybody's else's business. I believe that churches should not interfere with federal or state laws. I believe that marijuana should be legalized. I believe that it's acceptable to live with someone without being married. I am afraid of dying. I hate going to church because I feel like the people there are trying to suffocate me. I think that people who interpret the Bible literally are idiots. I will never be happy because my life will never be good enough for me. I thank God every day that I left my hometown, because as unhappy as I can still be living where I am now, if I had stayed I wouldn't have survived. I'm still not sure if I believe in God. The times I feel most alive are when I'm driving in my car singing at the top of my lungs. I hate being around my extended family, because none of them know anything about me, and they would hate me if they did. My mother buys me Christian literature that I never even open. I want to be famous because I want people to remember me; I don't want to be one of those people that fades out of existence. I hate when people ask me if I've "met any nice boys" or if I "have a sweetheart"; I'm in my late twenties and this isn't 1953, just ask me if I'm fucking anybody. I don't like dogs because they're needy. If the draft is ever reinstated and women are eligible, I will go get pregnant just to dodge the draft. I literally go pscyho when I'm on my period, and I wonder if I'm clinically depressed.

If you want to know anything else, ask. I'm ready to be an open book, and I don't give a shit who reads it.