Llamas Like Eggs

If my culinary dreams come true, then I think that I would like them to come true in some foreign jungle city that is indwelt by a large population of llamas. South America, then.

10 Things I Want to Do before I Kick the Bucket

1. Have the experience of opening my own mini restaurant.

2. Follow the trail of Easy Company and maybe even meet one of the members.

3. Live in the big city for a little bit.

4. Make the perfect omelet.

5. Subscribe to Better Homes and Gardens.

6. Skydive.

7. Travel. A lot.

8. Visit a bistro in the heart of French country. Befriend the proprietor.

9. Plan someone's wedding and decorate their house.

10. Write a book.

I dream little dreams mostly...they are the most enjoyable, methinks.

Post One-Double-Oh.

I couldn't wait. I'll postpone the nest post until tomorrow at least, I promise.

10 Things About Me.

1. If I wear something fancy once, it will not see the light of day for a few months (if not years).

2. I wish I were capable of making humor instead of just appreciating it.

3. I have always wanted a purple knit hat and spiky hair.

4. If I were capable of marriage (which I am highly doubting at this point of my life) (but then again, I don't know much and have little-to-none foresight), and if Elrond were real and available, I wouldn't know what to do. I would be at a perpetual loss for words.

5. As I grow older, I grow more confused..and then I feel young and life is full of clarity.

6. I am afraid of shopping carts to the point where I've developed a sixth sense concerning their presence behind me.

7. I memorize poems for fun.

8. I need a miracle, a star-crossed lover, an arrow in my heart.

9. I need a rainy day, and an endless summer: a pocket full of stars.

10. One of the perks for me about having a relationship with Jesus is eternal life. It's something that I'm so excited for and peaceful about. Do you realize what that means? An eternity to do and experience and be able to learn and think and grow and see and EVERYTHING. In HEAVEN. Frankly, I can't wait.

I can't believe I got through that. Cheating on numbers 8 and 9 helped.
(Pocket Full of Stars by Nine Black Alps.)

In Memory of Post Ninety-Nine.

In celebration of the next post's Massive Title of HUNDREDTH POST, I am doing a hundred questions in sets of ten posts, as follows:

(1)10 Things About Me

(2)10 Things I Want to Do Before I Kick the Bucket

(3)10 Treasures of My Life

(4)10 Most Influential Books

(5)10 Commandments Interpretation

(6)10 Things I've Learned from Blogging

(7)10 Strange, Weird, and Abnormal Things I Would Not Normally Admit

(8)10 Secrets

(9)10 Guilty Pleasures

(10)10 Reasons for loving The Lord of the Rings, Life, Band of Brothers, Top Chef, and House.

Intense, I know.

Dreams and Wishes

I was listening to Jordin Spark's "Battlefield" while looking at Band of Brothers icons. :D
(Oh yes. New favorite song.)

So I've been going to piano lessons and just began Music Theory today. My teacher is Mr. Vasiliy Kifyak, and he is awesome. It's very entertaining and engaging, actually.

But while I may enjoy music, it's not something as intensely felt as, say, culinary pursuits. It's all good, anyway. I am not going to be hasty anymore, as much as I can help it.

AND I'm re-reading The Lord of the Rings...and it is STUNNING, as usual. Every time I read it, I notice something new to glean.

Muse comes up with some creative song names (and driving melodies). Knights of Cydonia, for example. A great song for an uprising...they also have a song called Uprising which is good for a riot.

Hm. I had a dream Sunday night that shook me, about the church and certain elves and the Antichrist (or something close to it), buses, loneliness, Sunoco, and lots of machine guns. Did I mention the Hispanic (or Indian) preacher? or the BLOOD.

Ahem. I wrote a poem, as I am wont to do in these sort of mental situations.

The dreams flutters
and I am lying face down
upside down
on slabs of cement, still breathing.

Two faces in multiple places
grind their teeth at my memory
and I think—
I think—

My waking head conjures scenarios
in between the shafts of morning light
and I flit open,
my mind a steel trap that leaves the faces
bloody and broken.

That's how it felt waking up. The dream is too complicated to go into much detail (especially since I've acquired the habit of making up more details as I slowly return to complete consciousness), but the after-dream feeling was distinct.

As far as dreams (and poems) go, I loved it. It pulled me in and impacted me, leaving me breathless and speechless. It's not often that I can't describe the exact details because they are so ingrained into my brain that it is an immense struggle to de-glaze my mind into some form of literacy. But those are the kinds of dreams I relish.

Yeah. Maybe I am a geek for thinking this, but I dearly wish that Middle Earth was real..or that at least the basic principles of ME were the forces of our world.

The dangers of in-depth literary internalizing.

Lessons Learned Fell Great Oaks.

When you are pooped, nothing soothes quite like country music (specifically, Zach Brown Band's Chicken Fried). I tried listening to Muse--I really did. But it was terribly grating.

(But not Coldplay. Coldplay is eternally playable.)

I am pooped.

Two half-days of conference wears a body out, and especially when that body learns by listening and experiencing BOTH. They say that only fools learn by experience, but I think it depends on what you learn.

For example, I learned that friendship is the process of growing. I'd never heard that anywhere before (or if I did, I've forgotten), and learned it purely by experiencing what kind of relationship happens when one person stop growing at the same pace (or in the same direction). It's still a form of friendship, but not...friendship.

And it makes me sad. (But not fully sad--there's that psychological pleasure always in the back of my head when an opportunity to discover things about the human psyche. It's persistent.)

Huh. I think my writing's improving. Must be the continuous journal entries and internalizing (new favorite word--heard it several time during the conference).

WHICH REMINDS ME. I also learned that my youth pastor is not the only one who says "during" dyou-ring. It's kind of funny.

Oh yes.

I love Jesus.
(A lot.)

And I still adore food.
(I'll never unlearn adoring food.)
(At least, I desperately hope not.)

Oh! And The Lord of the Rings, too! That is something that I absolutely LOVE.
(Partly because of Elrond and [among his other elvish attributes] his Eyebrows of Doom.)

Need I even mention Band of Brothers?

Dreaming in Cayenne and Paprika.

Yes. So during the last two posts, I spilled milk on the keyboard. Twice.
Thankfully, the flea is clean and my brother had a spare one stashed in his room... and just now I am freed from schoolwork (for a little while--much research and typing still to be done) and housework (at least until my dad comes back and gives the call to arms) and can FINALLY write what's been on my heart for quite a while now.

If God hadn't called me to journalism, I'd dedicate my life to culinary pursuits.

Being a writer, it is hard to be completely and utterly unable to express my heart and my mind... but regarding FOOD, I am incapable of coherence. Almost.

I can grunt and give throaty sounds of pleasure and longing for UMAMI and ACIDITY and SUGARINESS.

Also I am able to mentally scan picture after picture of recipes and salivate over them...Pot-au-fue, Coq-Au-Vin, raspberry charlotte, maraschino cherries (oh sweet star-morsels), Dijon-spiked tender flesh and crisp roasted chicken skin, soulful coulete...the list goes on and on and on--and so do the mental pictures and salivations.

I dream of owning a tiny, cozy place with hearty fare on the New England coast...or maybe in San Francisco or Louisiana...next to a body of water somewhere is my point, with plenty of local flavor. Cliched? Maybe so--but idyllic nevertheless.

Can you picture it?

Sandy, pebbly beaches; slope-roofed weathered walls; steamy aromas of bubbling pink lobsters, and sweet medleys of fat fresh-shucked Galveston Bay oysters and garlicky gold potatoes...

This is the stuff my dreams are made of.

Bustling between kitchen and front, I will resemble the chickens I send out before they were sacrificed for the cause of pleasant survival--plump, full of life, and content.

Because I do not plan on being skinny if I become a chef. A journalist (in my humble opinion) needs to be thin, to keep up with the hustle-and-bustle image; but a chef is expected to have evidence of savoring food in his rotund middle. I would be only to happy to oblige.

My kitchen would smell so delectable, French perfumists would visit and ask to bottle the fragrances emanating from the place to put in little round bottles for the use of desperate housewives (nothing draws a man quite like food).

Also my tables, all fifteen of them, would have seasonal fresh flowers as centerpieces, and no two tables would be alike. Even the tables and chairs would be different!

Ah, but I have grand dreams. Maybe I can do this someday, and write articles as I'm shepherding saffron duck pot pies from the kitchen.

My dear, I love you ardently
Adore your charm, the way you look,
I'm captivated by your voice,
I've read with pride your latest book,
And yet I will not marry you
Until, sweetheart, you've learned to cook.

--by a Smart Man.

Throughout it all, it was a life she thoroughly enjoyed

i kill my keyBaord. i tYpe now BY copY-pasting.

When it rains, I wax poetic. Not that I'm not poetic when it suns, but that's sentimentality for you.

Ah, rain song!
I see you tinkering your dimples
onto the street,
your simpering pimples on the pagan street.

Sweet water!
trickling around my sinuses into
my heart,
your loquaciousness lodging aboard
the bloodworks of my heart

POUND POUND POUND

tickle.

Isn't it strange and pretty? Sort of like rain. That is why I like it.

And I wrote an autumn poem once, too, in August. I shall post it sometime.

Hum-de-dum, let us see.
Jesus has been good to me.
Confirmations, 'piphanies,
Swinging hammocks high in trees.
Stuff a wuffle in her face,
Zupcic sings Amazing Grace.
Wires distorted by oily water,
Fire from heaven burning HOTTTTTTER.
Funky noises late at night,
Boy-scapades burned into sight.
Shouting, crying, dancing, praising,
Jesus' name forever raising.
New York accent tells the story,
Helps to usher in His Glory.
Secrets, showers in the dark,
A Treasurer who likes to bark.
Kittens, diving boards, and tires,
Elevated ropes-course wires.
Spam and soda, baby food--
Kyle Gibson, lookin' good.
This year's trend--a yellow hat;
That was FUEL, and that is that.

A Juicy Life I Lead

Lol. I just read The Fish's blog...only hours apart.

I, also, am going to the mountains with the youth group, and I am heavily excited. Too excited to form any coherent thoughts!

So I'll leave you with a list of a few of my favourite songs describing my EMOTIONS.

Such Great Heights - Iron&Wine

Because everything looks perfect from far away...and also He may have revealed His corresponding shape to my eyes, Glory Hallelujah!


Strawberry Swing - Coldplay

That vibe is my vibe right now. Funky fresh, yo.

Zero - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Because I'm gonna get my leather on during FUEL.

And also

Brown Girl in the Ring - Boney M
It's been stuck in my head all day long, even though I'm no black girl and there's no rings anywhere near me. But it's also funky.

FUNKY WEEKEND, HERE I COME.

(Linguistic tidbit: emigrant is used when they're coming from a country. Immigrant is when they're coming to a country.)