poof!

It's the magical disappearing bl*g!

Ta-da! We're back!

Sorry for that. I'd planned in this post to make excuses for GFD's absence, but let's just put it this way: Life is complicated. And sometimes when life is especially complicated, one wants to disappear. One also wants to refer to herself in the third person, and one wants to sit in the dark on a bright, sunny day and watch TV. One wonders why she didn't buy light-blocking shades for her living room and, after nine months of cursing the darkness, one curses the sunlight.


Suffice it to say, I thought about you constantly in between episodes, and I have so many things to tell you. First, the shows Downton Abbey and The Killing are perfect for watching in not-nearly-dark-enough rooms in the middle of the day. One is a British soap opera/period drama, the other will more accurately reflect your mood.

Even more importantly, I discovered during my disappearance that making a soufflé is not some culinary trick that can be mastered only by people who are from or have traveled to France. It turns out that making a soufflé is easy as pie. Much easier than pie, actually, the making of which is a culinary trick that can only be mastered by people who are grandmothers.


And not only is soufflé easy, it's total comfort food (eggy and airy and savory) while also being the epitome of fine dining (c. 1972 maybe, but I'm predicting a comeback; you read it here first). But perhaps the best, and most surprising, thing about soufflé is that YOU CAN REHEAT IT AND EAT IT FOR BREAKFAST. And then you can walk directly to the couch and start watching TV.

This recipe is delicious, although the newspaper in which it was published doesn't appear to use a proofreader, who surely would have noticed that the writer lists egg yolks in the ingredients but never explains what to do with them. So this recipe will be useful for figuring out what to do with yolks, unless you are from or have traveled to France, in which case you already know.

I missed you, bitches.

2:49 p.m.

You're going to have to trust me when I tell you that some days the best course is to lie on the couch and gnaw at a piece of cheese.

it's called gruel a la nuts and grains and legumes and greens and carmelized onions

I am, by nature, a homebody. I work from home, my favorite outfit is not suitable for wearing in public, some of my favorite activities can be done within the walls of our apartment—read, cook, write, eat, watch Gossip Girl, hang out with the yachtsman.

But since my dog died, I hate my house. I dread coming home, I cry as soon as I walk in the door, I can't stand spending time here, and when forced to do so I alternate between weeping and throwing irrational tantrums that involve stomping, cleaning, swearing, and telling the yachtsman about our apartment's many flaws.

I feel more or less OK when I'm not at home, so for the most part I've avoided being here for the last twelve days. But before we left to go out of town this past weekend, I decided things needed to return to normal this week. I would start writing again Monday morning, I accepted some freelance work, we actually hired someone to clean the apartment while we were away, thinking this would help. But on our way back to Vermont this afternoon, I started to panic. And then I once again avoided coming home. We stopped by my mom's on our way back into town. We stopped by my sister's. We stopped at Dunkin Donuts (desperate times require desperate measures). But eventually we walked into our sunny, clean apartment, and the tantrums began. I cried, I cleaned the hateful windowsills, my sweet husband re-mopped the evil floor, I threw most of the hideous food in our dumb refrigerator into the disgusting trash, I stomped, my sweet husband asked what I wanted for dinner, I ate a cupcake, I became furious with myself for eating a cupcake, I watered the stupid fucking plants, I decided to create a hate website dedicated to complaining about the contractor who renovated our apartment, I cleaned my dog's dried blood from the walls, I put my face in a pillow and screamed, my husband asked if he should get us some takeout, I yelled at him that if he wanted to eat he should just eat, I dusted my stupid desk that is so uncomfortable I can barely work at it, I kicked my desk, I decided to chop my desk into pieces, my sweet husband said he was going to the co-op to buy groceries did I want anything, I screamed I'M COMING WITH YOU and at the last minute went to my computer and printed out a recipe I'd been wanting to make for awhile.

And when we got home, I cooked.


For the first time since Abe died—for the first time all summer, really—I made a meal that required more than one pot. For two hours, I sliced and carmelized and stirred and boiled and chopped and toasted and tasted, and at ten o'clock tonight I sat down to what I think will be my go-to pot of gruel this winter. I need to fiddle with the recipe some before I post it, but look here soon for the perfect tantrum antidote.

living the good li(f)e

I was grumpy yesterday. Unbelievably grumpy. Dangerously grumpy. I was so grumpy, I convinced myself that all the times in my life when I thought I was happy were a lie: I'd actually been grumpy and deluded myself into thinking I was happy.

And then I went to my two-hours-a-month grocery-bagging job (i.e., I did my monthly member work at the co-op we belong to), which I was pretty sure would put me over the edge. I decided ahead of time that my strategy would be this: To the average person I would pretend I didn't speak English; I would yell at anyone who looked at me funny and start a fist fight with anyone who was outwardly rude; cheerful, happy people would get a lecture on how they were not actually cheerful and happy, they were miserable and living a lie.

But it turns out that I love bagging groceries. One minute at the end of that checkout lane and I'd gone from Grump Factor 6 to Grump Factor 3. A couple of customers later and I was happy again, or at least living the lie of happiness.

Shoppers and (most) cashiers are grateful and kind to the non-English speaker bagging their goods. And I felt like an anthropologist studying the fascinating, complex grocery-buying habits of another culture: I had to stop myself from asking every single person one of the following questions: "What is that?" "How are you going to prepare that?" "What aisle is that in?"

Because our co-op is both a natural foods store and the local grocery store for a diverse community, there are many different kinds of shoppers. There's the tiny lady with tan, muscular arms and a French accent who spent hundreds of dollars on figs and greens and peaches and cherries, pastas and grains and nuts and spices, creme fraiche and cream in glass bottles, nice fish and fancy meat, bakery breads and pretty little teacakes, and six bottles of wine. And then there's the guy who trudged through to buy a can of soup, a can of Folgers, and a box of Shurfine-brand pinwheel cookies. There are the Bantu ladies, with their sassy teenage daughters and adorable babies, who buy bags of grains and bottles of Coke. There are the hippies (kombucha) and the college students (multiple boxes of mac-n-cheese) and the college student hippies (multiple boxes of mac-n-cheese and kombucha).

I shopped before I left, inspired by everything I'd seen, and when I arrived home (with peaches and cherries and pinwheel cookies) to face my messy house and deskful of work, I lamented the fact that I can't bag groceries whenever I'm grumpy. But then I realized I probably can. I'm pretty sure no one would notice if I showed up, put on a Member Worker button, and started bagging. And if they did, I'd just pretend I didn't speak English.

I tried to take a photo of my cherries but ended up with a picture of the flowers.

an embarrassment of riches, & also my feet are not pretty

It rained this weekend, I was homesick for Chris and Abe Lincoln, and I have two cold sores and PMS. Desperate times require desperate measures, so I grabbed a New Yorker and one of the delicious cookies my sweet Tonto sent and got into the tub,


where I read an uplifting article about David Foster Wallace's inability to finish his last novel and subsequent suicide.

When I got out of the tub -- finally warm but even more depressed and worried I might have contracted nun's foot, a strain of athlete's foot that's rampant in convents -- I found the British playwright had left flowers in my studio and my "art buddy" (a T.Diddy townsperson) had brought me some dried sage and other herbs from her ranch.

I am a lucky (if grumpy) woman.

hello, losers!

I'm writing to you from Denver, where for reasons I don't entirely understand I'll be spending another night before heading to Trinidad tomorrow.

In an example of pathetic fallacy, it is both snowing and thundering outside: The weather, too, is at grump factor 6! But the weather does not have five episodes of Gossip Girl on its iPod to lie in bed and watch.

[A note to the Mister Who Will Not Watch Gossip Girl: This is an actual line from an episode I watched on the plane yesterday, spoken by one character trying to comfort another after a family secret has been revealed: "We could both use a distraction. I say we play Boggle or watch a trashy movie. I rented Showgirls!" Seriously, Mister, if you have not watched the first season by the time I return home (which may be tomorrow if the freakout/meltdown looming on my horizon actually occurs), I might have to stop being your friend. Unless I go through with my plan to kidnap and keep you as my slave baker, in which case we will be master/servant (which is sort of like being friends) for life.]

it's not exactly a sacrifice

My stepmama brought me this beautiful orchid the other day, along with these famous last words: "Don't worry, you won't kill it."

On her way out she saw my copy of Behind the Scenes at the Museum sitting on the table and asked if I was embarrassed to have been reading the same book for nearly the entire life of this bl*g. But I gave up shame for Lent, which seemed like a much better idea than giving up sweets or drinking (the grump factor would have been off the CHARTS).

the apple was not enough

I don't know if it's my off-the-charts grump factor or if something else is afoot (Mercury in retrograde? testosterone in the water supply?), but twice in the past four days I've gotten into arguments with perfect strangers, arguments that could have escalated into fisticuffs had I not been (1) calmed by an elderly gentleman on a Metro bus in DC who counseled me that it "just wasn't worth it" or (2) on an elevator, the doors of which closed before I could kick that rude lady's ASS.

My lovely mother-in-law is coming over for dinner tonight, which I'm very much looking forward to, though this will require a trip to the grocery store, where someone will probably get hurt.

grump factor 6

When I'm in a bad mood, Chris usually asks if I'm at Grump Factor 6. When I once claimed to be at Grump Factor 10, Chris informed me that the Grump Index only goes up to 6, but I swear to you, I've been at Grump Factor 79 for the past couple of days.

For example, when I realized today that I didn't have one of the ingredients for my planned lunch, I considered lying down on the floor and crying. But there was just too much dog hair.

Usually I like to eat leftovers for lunch (e.g., make a pot of soup one night for dinner and eat it for lunch the next couple of days). When I know leftovers will not be an option, I buy black beans, whole wheat tortillas (as with pasta, I swear that whole wheat is better than white), cheese, lettuce, an avocado, lime, and salsa, and I make a burrito each day for lunch.

Burritos are a great lunch. I love beans, avocado is my favorite food, cheese is an asset to any meal, lettuce gives the illusion of healthfulness... But today my burrito was foiled. It was foiled by mis-shopping, and it was foiled by Grump Factor 6.

First, I accidentally bought black soy beans instead of black beans. What the fuck are black soy beans? Whatever they are, they're not going in my burrito, because grumpiness and trying new things do not mix. And this description from the can wasn't particularly compelling: "Organic Black Soy Beans are the best edible soybean variety." It was quite a competition: Once the inedible poop beans were taken out of the running, the edible black soy beans won.

Without beans, I didn't have a burrito, so I made a quesadilla, which is just not the same. Plus, I didn't have lime for my avocado (which I usually mash with lime juice, salt, and Cholula hot sauce), my salsa was old and watery and a little fizzy, there is nowhere to put lettuce on a quesadilla...

In spite of its deficiencies, I managed to force this plateful of food down my throat, which will hopefully give me the strength I need to vacuum up all that dog hair so that when the next crisis occurs I can just throw myself to the ground and weep.