This recipe is called “Put Things in the Rice Cooker and Hope it Ends Up Tasting Good”

I’m not a chef. That’s usually OK because Trader Joe’s sells frozen food and I have a microwave. However, I have discovered this easily customizable recipe which ANYONE can make! The proof I have is that I can make it, and when it comes to culinary preparation I am a good stand in for “anyone”. 

You just need a rice cooker. You don’t need one of the fancy ones that, like, cooks at a different temperature based on the chemical solution of the soil in which the rice was grown or anything. Just one with an On/Off switch. And a cord with a plug on it. And a wall socket. You need electricity is what I mean.

Ingredients:

Rice

Or whatever

And then anything else you think might taste good with the other stuff you have

Preparation:

1. Put some rice or whatever in the rice cooker.

2. Add water or vegetable stock. Usually it’s something like a 2/1 ratio of liquid to rice, but it depends on how much other stuff you’re putting in there.

3. Now it’s time to put the other stuff in. Did you get long-grain rice? Maybe throw in a can of black beans, or some chopped tomatoes. Or go crazy and add BOTH. Did you get Japanese white rice? Mmm, that might taste good with some mushrooms and some ponzu sauce, perhaps some sesame seeds? Do you have tofu lying around? Maybe chop some of that and throw it in there too. Or any other vegetables you have. And spices! I bet you have spices and some of them would taste good with the other stuff you have in there. If you’re like me you can guess (“Paprika? Sure, why not!”) or if you actually know what you’re doing you can choose more cautiously (“A human who would put paprika in this dish is a ninny who deserves what they get.”)

4. Keep putting stuff in until you think it will probably taste good or you get bored.

5. Turn the rice cooker on. It will now cook whatever you put in there. Many people believe the rice cooker will revolt and refuse to cook things that aren’t rice. “I am a rice cooker,” it will say, “And I was not designed for any of this spinachy nonsense! Fill me with rice and rice alone.” This is wrong for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it just steams stuff until the internal temperature of the rice cooker goes above the boiling point of water; rice is not essential. Secondly, it’s a rice cooker, and rice cookers can’t talk.

6. Is it done yet? Probably not because this can take a frustratingly long time. Don’t try this when you’re hungry.

7. OK, it’s done.

8. Try some of it. Does it taste good? Well done! If not, try again next time with other stuff.

Serves 0 (if it’s bad) - However many people want some (portion size will vary).

Enjoy!

Tortuous. Wonderful.

Here are some notes I just found in a notebook I haven’t opened for two years. They are notes for something (I think I remember what they’re for). Anyway. Seemed appropriate for today.

Every generation thinks they’re the last, thinks they’re special? “I figure we’ll all end up in utopia, or dead. 50 years out.” And 50 years out, people will be saying that too.

We even found their stuff on the moon.

History is on a parabolic curve, ever approaching zero, but never reaching it. Mathematically [illegible] paradox — can [illegible] curve happens relative to both axes. At a certain point, it switches the axis to which it’s relative.

“Yes, but this is the first time there’ve ever been weapons that could kill us all. One crazy could fuck us all.

History is resolution. Resolution is megapixels, it seems to us that cultural trends speed up as they approach us. But every generation thinks that. It’s not true. We’re just at the crest of the wave.”

It’s true, and it isn’t. Like the Hubble. (we only have the perspective we have)

Egypt —> Picasso.

Time and time. 2K years.

WE GET TO JUDGE BY OUR POSITION.

Just because we don’t know everything doesn’t mean we don’t get to judge.

Time is relative.

There is more capacity for mass destruction from human agency. Human agency matters.

Self awareness is torture.

There is no difference between a nuke going off, an asteroid hitting us, an airplane crashing, or getting leukemia.

Isn’t that solipsistic?

We’re dead either way. I get the nonchalance.

Tortuous, wonderful. We’re both right.

Anonymous asked: What is your favorite Girl Scout cookie?

A Thin Mint straight from the freezer. Although it’s been years since I’ve had any GSCs at all, so I don’t really know. I mean, I used to like hamburgers and hate the Brussels sprout, so I don’t know.

I just don’t know.

tumblrbot asked: WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?

Easter. Freaking. Island. But given that the current cheapest round-trip flight is $1,800 and it takes two days to get there and two days to get back, I imagine I won’t be going any time soon but THANKS FOR BRINGING IT UP TUMBLRBOT. I think I’ll go back to staring at my computer screen now.

A Poem

I

did

not

write

this

poem

I

compiled

it

by

selecting

at

random

words

I

had

previously

cut

out

of

a

better

homes

and

gardens

magazine

and

placed

into

a

purple

bucket

footnote

it

was

actually

Martha

Stewart

living

and

a

black

fedora

I

have

no

explanation

for

why

it

is

this

coherent

I

did

not

cheat

and

rearrange

the

words

this

is

completely

totally

and

one

hundred

percent

pumpernickel

bacon

limestone

washtub

and

that

I

think

we

can

all

agree

is

very

beautiful

Geese in the Wilderness

What is it about particularly wild geese that makes them difficult to chase? Are domesticated geese worse escape artists? Can you even have a domesticated goose chase, or are domesticated geese all meek and lazy or in a cage or tied to a fence or something?

Isn’t it actually exceptionally difficult to chase ANY goose, because geese can fly and you (probably) cannot? I imagine that chasing a flighted animal would quickly prove difficult. Well, actually, I don’t have to imagine, because one of my favorite pastimes is extending my hands outward in a kind of “robot ready for grabbing” formation and chasing after pigeons. I don’t have cable. Or access to wild geese. If I did, I would likely attempt to chase one.

Or, wait, is “wild” not modifying “goose” but “chase” as in “we wildly chased a goose” rather than “we chased a wild goose”? e.g. “Hey, Brian, you should have SEEN the goose chase we were on last night! Shizz was WILD!” [mountain dew, mountain dew, mountain dew!, Said Brian.)]

PROBABLY NOT. But I bet it would be relatively easy to get access to a domesticated goose. I could try it. Although first I’d have to convince its owner to let me chase it. And if I had a domesticated goose, and somebody I didn’t know approached me and asked if he could chase it, I’d say NO. I’d say no, because I would love my geese and not want anybody to cause them stress by chasing them. Also, I would say no because I don’t even know this man, and he is asking for something as personal as the right to chase my livestock? Maybe he would also like, oh, I don’t know, MY DAUGHTER. YES I DON’T HAVE A DAUGHTER. BUT IT’S FAIR, BECAUSE YOU DON’T HAVE A WILD GOOSE.

Ahem.

Anyway: who are these people chasing wild geese, and where are they chasing them to, and also “why” is the other question that needs asking. I DON’T KNOW.

Has anyone ever participated in a wild goose chase? Or seen one? Or heard tell of one? And when you use the phrase “wild goose chase” do you invariably picture yourself running after a squawking, flapping, helpless creature? Or do you, as I sometimes do, picture yourself as the wild goose, and others are chasing YOU? Don’t worry. It isn’t weird. Or, it is, but it’s probably fine.

In the long run.

My 2010

In 2010 I got sick.

In 2010 I was as sick as I’ve ever been in my life, a skull-crushing, strength-destroying, soul-exhausting, heart-clenching meningitic thing that took me to the hospital twice. I had two CAT scans, an MRI, an EMG, a stack of EKGs, an echocardiogram, a month off work, and a daily certainty that I was going to die. Which led me to freak out. Which freakouts manifested as physical symptoms that matched those of heart attacks. Which physical symptoms led me into a fairly dark place, all things considered. Which led to me going to the hospital two additional times for stupid reasons, and to more doctor’s appointments than I can accurately remember, and finally to a doctor who suggested that maybe, just maybe, I was suffering from anxiety.

In 2010 I got anxious.

In 2010 I got help. Anxiety can be lessened with medication, but is also bested by lifestyle changes. I began to dance my ass off in Dan Safer’s and Laura Stinger’s movement class. A class that, nominally for college first years, was pitched to exactly my level of physicality. A class that promised to teach body awareness. A class that lived up to its promise. I am aware of my body. And yes, it would be fair to say that for the first time that I can remember, I am not suspicious of it. I am daily thankful to be a corporeal being. You guys, this is a big change. I bought an exercise bike and began to ride it diligently. I began to diligently eat well. And I diligently took my medication, because it, too, helped a lot.

In 2010, I thought off 2010 as a lost year; a year lost entirely to sickness and worry.

But in 2010 I wrote What’s the Matter With Pandas? And I wrote A Preposterously Brief History of Everything in the Whole Entire Universe. And I saw them made (by a group of ridiculously talented people) into readings at New York Theater Workshop, presented to an audience that loved them (and loved the goat play too). And I completed a short film script — We Must Have Decorum — and was there as a group of equally ridiculously talented people made it into an actual movie with, you know, lights and cameras and everything. And I wrote All the Luck and saw two readings of that and began considering the possibility that it might be a thing that happens in the world of commercial theater. And I rewrote the Pageant! and put that on with a group of crazies and got people liquored up and actually broke even. And I kept on working on Over and Over which is never ever going to be done, and that is probably the best thing about it.

And in 2010, I fell even more in love with Stephanie, who kept by me during the really rough time and never let me get complacent about feeling ill. She was kind and gentle when it was needed, and she kicked my ass when it needed kicking, and she was always there in just the right ways, whether it was to tell me that it’s OK to be human or to tell me that it would get better or to tell me that I needed to shape the hell up or just to shout LOVES with me in really crazy voices and then descend into uncontrollable giggles in a real pile. A real one.

And in 2010, my relationships with friends grew deeper and stronger, and I met some really cool and wonderful people, and made some new groovy friends, and saw a number of really beautiful people really beautifully naked.

And in 2010 I went to DC a couple of times, and to Chicago a couple of times, and to Portland for a lovely week, and to New York venues to see Regina Spektor and Pearl Jam (not together). And I became a member at MoMA, and read the most amazing books, and had the most amazing conversations, and shouted LOVES in even crazier voices.

And in 2010 I co-founded a not-church, and watched as my suspicion of it turned into delight (it worked!). And I participated in a collaborative theater thing, and I dreamed up ideas about Gutenberg, and I kept on dancing my ass off in movement class as I smiled ever harder and harder at nothing and everything at once. “Landlocked in bodies that don’t keep,” says Joanna, “Dumbstruck with the sweetness of being.”

And in 2010, I was. And I was. In approximately that order.

In 2010 I got better. Yes.

In 2010 I got well.

Nabokovian Vocabulary, Part 1

I’ve recently decided to go on a reading spree, kicking through V. Nabokov’s entire long-fiction OEUVRE in a single go. There were two basic impeti (?): 1) I’ve never read an author’s work all at once like that, and it seemed like a cool thing to do (for very small values of “cool”); and 2) Ada, or Ardor is one of the damned finest works I’ve ever read ever ever and I wanted to get me some more of that.

Now, Vladimir is amazing for plenty of reasons, and obnoxious for one major one, which is that he can write better in his second and third languages than I can in my primary. Homeboy is a prose effing stylist. He rules. Ruled. Whatever.

But and so I found myself noting plenty and plenty of words I didn’t know throughout Bend Sinister, which is where by chance I began. I don’t remember the last time I was so thrown by “vocabulary” in a book, but good grief if there weren’t plenty of words about which I was just clueless.

Here they are, yes here they all are, and there will likely be 16 more of these posts before I’m through.

alembic

siliceous

chary

columbarian (I’m guessing is the adjectival form of columbary?)

paletoted (wearing one, I guess)

galatea

divigations (can’t find it, maybe an alternate spelling of “divagate”? this works in context)

scholiant (I mean, I can piece this one together, but I can’t find a definition anywhere)

scholium (I cannot read my own writing)

canescent

caryatids

lassitude

percipient (pretty obvious, in retrospect)

noumenon (having read the definition, I’m still not totally clear)

captious (good word)

eidolon