insomnia haiku

I'm moving! Or rather, I've already moved. My bad.

So there's something I keep forgetting to mention, which may or may not be important, since writing this blog post is akin to being a tree, falling alone in the forest, feeling an existential ache at knowing it's not making a sound.

About a month ago, I moved my blog.

This is not as momentous as it would be with other blogs, where the keepers of said blogs occasionally write things. I copied all the posts to Wordpress on a whim, and spent a day obsessing over which free themes didn't suck (the answer: none, really), and even, after a week or so, wrote a new blog post. (Talk about the tree falling in the forest. That poor, lonely blog post—on a blog that no one knows exists—is like the leaf on the twig on the tree that... oh, whatever.) And then I never got around to telling anyone about it, because I am that lazy, or that apathetic, or that exhausted. Pick one. I'm too lazy/apathetic/exhausted to do it.

Well, the new blog now lives at Insomniahaiku.com, where it's all comfy and warm and only slightly awkward for being the new kid in Wordpress town. See, I even bought my own domain name, because URL cleanliness is a virtue.

Typepad won't let me do redirects, so this site will be up for a while, but only until my yearly fee runs out. Therefore, please head on over to the new place—which may seem strange at first, what with its unfortunate free design (which I will likely be changing eight more times) but will eventually feel like home—and continue to bookmark or ignore or anything you like. There is a nice, shiny blog post already waiting there for you, untouched by the world. And as a promise or threat, I even have an idea for a brand-new post, which I may will even write. 

See you over there. I'll bring cookies.

Holiday letter postscript

You didn't believe me, did you? When I said people write outrageous Christmas letters ... you probably thought I was exaggerating.

Today, my parents received the annual Christmas letter from a former associate of my dad's. They find it so over the top that they've given me permission to reprint parts of it. "You can even say where he lives," they suggested, though I won't do that. I pointed out that if I reprinted any of this word for word, he might be able to find the blog post by searching for the phrasing. "Good!" they said. I love when my parents are gleefully vindictive.

Some people, you see, have no filter. Or maybe they have one, and it flies out the door when they sit down to write up the year's news. As I unfolded the letter, this paragraph — the second-to-last one — leapt out at me:

2013 specially the latter part of it has been a difficult year and chaotic for a lot of people. The medical field will be turned topsy-turvy by the ridiculous Obamacare. Unfortunately, more pain will come in the future. Well, with an incompetent, dishonest yet arrogant idealogue in the White House, what can one expect.

Yes, this was in a Christmas letter. Seriously?! Even if I agreed with that sentiment (which I obviously don't), I can't imagine how someone thought that was appropriate to say in a letter being sent out to a vast list of friends, family and long-lost acquaintances. Merry Christmas! Our president is a crook!

The letter ends with "Wishing you all, with God's grace to have a better 2014," which doesn't make any sense, since Obama's still going to be in the White House next year. He probably should have written, "Wishing you all to have a better 2017, when that scoundrel Obama is finally gone for good."

The rest of the letter goes in the other direction entirely. I now know a lot of vague, mundane things about his kids and grandkids. For example:

___ stays busy in her work. ____ is working for a different engineering company with higher pay. ____ is busy as usual in his business. ____ is in preschool and is in her usual sweet disposition except for occasional stubbornness.

Please understand, I'm sure his family is full of lovely, warm, hard-working people. I'm just not sure what the point of any of this was. This is like the worst of Facebook ("Eating a sandwich!" "That was a great sandwich!"), done up old-school style.

All of this brings me to the conclusion that I didn't do a good enough job of parodying the mind-numbing tedium of the annual Christmas letter. Here's what I should have written instead:

***2013 Christmas letter [excerpt]***

... ____ is five years old and still likes cars. He also likes trucks, but he really prefers cars. Mom and Dad got new Internet upstairs, and it's much faster. They also put new carpet in. It's similar to the old carpet but a slightly different color. Tonka has to wear a diaper when he leaves the house, or else he'll pee on the floor. Josie started eating new food and now has much better breath. Dexter had to have his leg amputated but was soon running around, peeing pooping on the carpet like his old self.

It's been a difficult year, partly because they cancelled "Happy Endings" and "Breaking Bad" ended. Most of all, I can't believe how terrible those Tea Party Republicans were this year, shutting down the government, stifling voting rights and spreading ridiculous myths about Obamacare. Well, with so many close-minded, ignorant idealogues being pig-headed liars, what can you expect? Unfortunately, they won't ever change. At least we kept them out of the White House until 2017. Also, gay marriage.

Wishing you all a better 2014, filled with hope, good health, and a Cal football team that wins more than one game. 

Happy New Year, everyone.

My 2013 holiday letter

I've fallen off most people's Christmas-card lists, mostly because I no longer send out cards myself. 

If I'm going to do it, I prefer to write a personal note. I'm not knocking anyone who sends unsigned card stock with pictures of their kids and letters about their year. I like getting those. (Thanks, people who sent them!) It's just my preference to write a note to the person, and since it takes a while to do that, I've given up the effort entirely.

But despite the fact that I enjoy hearing about my friends' lives, there are holiday letters, and then there are letters. I'm talking three-page missives about every mundane thing that happened to every person in the extended family. My parents used to get an epic Christmas letter from a barely remembered acquaintance, and reading this thing became an annual event. What will they say this year? What kind of surgery did the husband have on his toe? What grade did the daughter get on her algebra exam? And wow, is that how you really feel about Obama?

There's a balance. Call me strange, but I think there are some things that may not be appropriate for the annual Christmas letter. But who am I to know? And there is something to be said about letting people know what's going on in your life. Especially if you "forgot" to update your blog for a year. Therefore, please allow me to present my own Christmas letter for 2013. Please to enjoy. And happy holidays.

December 24, 2013

Dear Friends,

Goodness, what a year it's been! 2013 started with some exciting news: I got a job. It had been a while, so I had to weigh the pros and cons when deciding whether or not to rejoin the full-time workforce. The cons included taking a shower and getting out of my pajamas every day, having to be at work at 9am (believe it or not, this was a first for me), and not being able to go to Trader Joe's at 2pm when there are no lines. The pros: free coffee, a regular paycheck, the opportunity to interact with people and not become the Unabomber, the restoration of my self-esteem. It was close, but in the end, free coffee won out.

In April I went to a friend's wedding in Jamaica—my first destination wedding. The wedding was lovely and I had a lot of fun, learning some important lessons along the way. For example, people really do say "yeah mon" in Jamaica. And, going to an all-inclusive resort turns you into a starved monster who only wants to get her money's worth in meals. The attitude becomes "I already paid for it, so I am going to eat my weight in food." The first night, we dined at an all-you-can-eat surf-and-turf buffet. I was perfectly satisfied after my first serving, which included lobster tail and lamb chops. Then I went back for seconds. Possibly thirds. And dessert. It was like Thanksgiving in that bad, "why am I trying to kill myself with food" kind of way. Then again, I suppose the ultimate lesson here is: Keep me away from buffets.

In May, I traveled to Kona, Hawaii, with my parents. I did all the driving. This proved stressful since, with my parents in the car, I drove like a grandmother. It gets dark on the Big Island, and also rainy. Hawaiians were constantly tailing me as I drove 15 mph around hairpin turns in the rainy dark. Other than that, the Big Island is beautiful, and we had an amazing meal at Merriman's, and we saw a turtle.

I don't remember what happened in the summer. It was really hot. We all stayed inside and talked about how hot it was.

Somewhere in there, I spent a month growing out a broken toenail on my big toe. It was quite an ordeal, and I am grateful to everyone who supported me during this difficult time.

In July, "Orange Is the New Black" came out on Netflix, and I disappeared from civilization for three days.

This year in general was a momentous one in that I accomplished a lot of binge-watching. Some may argue that watching four hours of television in a row, for multiple days in a row, is unhealthy. I would argue that it kept me from becoming a crack addict. To each his own vice. Among the shows I  binge-watched this year: "Justified," "House of Cards," "Scandal," "Battlestar Galactica," the final season of "Damages." The end result is that I have a crush on Timothy Olyphant, I covet Kerry Washington's coats, and though I now understand what all the BSG hype was about, I had issues with the finale, and if you've seen the series, then YOU KNOW WHY.

Also, I hated "Man of Steel." Let's move on.

In August I attended a huge family reunion in Peru. We ate lots and lots of heavenly food. No, I'm afraid you don't understand me. Picture a lot of food, and then multiply it by ten. At one point my mother asked my sister-in-law if Peru was what she'd expected. She replied that my brother had told her there would be a lot of food, "But I didn't realize it would be this much food." Let's just say we had not one, but two pigs roasted for us. My cousin's husband made his famed lomo saltado. (He adds "polvo magico" to it. Translation: magic dust.) My aunt made picarones from scratch. There were feasts coming out our ears. If you've ever wondered where my love of food comes from, you just need to stay with my family in Peru for a few days to understand why.

I did pick up a new hobby this year: archery. Two friends and I took a class, and after a single hour and a half, I am confident that I could win the Hunger Games. Or go to the Olympics. 

Speaking of the Olympics, I transferred my Angry Birds obsession to a Candy Crush obsession late this year. I'm on level 181. The chocolate fans are the worst. There were some dark days. I am grateful to everyone who has supported me during this difficult time.

But friends, in all seriousness, it's been a good year, full of change and challenge and possibility. Here's to you, and yours, and the promise of 2014. Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone.

Love,

Me

Don't call it a comeback

Hello! I realize I've let this blog lapse for a while. There are a few reasons for this. For one thing, having a real job is exhausting. You'd think I would have known this already, but either this job is more exhausting than the last one, or I'm just old. So when I get home at night, all I want to do is sit on my couch and binge-watch TV shows. I haven't decided whether my New Year's resolution is to get a new hobby that gets me out of the house more ... or to binge-watch more TV shows.

Second, in the last few years I have become much more conscious of an obvious fact: The Internet is public. It doesn't matter whether only two people read my blog, or I take my name off of it and hide it from search engines. Anything I write is out there, in the world. Therefore, what I may take as an interesting or amusing anecdote from work is not something I can share, lest it get traced back to me and I get in trouble for airing my company's dirty laundry. (Not that we have any. My company is awesome! Hi, NSA!) I'm not comfortable sharing stories from my personal life, or pictures of people I know, since I didn't get their permission first. And I'm all too aware that anything you say on the Internet is out there, readable by anyone, and it can get picked up and go viral in a flash.

I've always been a private person. This blog has been a creative outlet for me, a chance to work out ideas and write in ways I don't normally get to do professionally. And, since the act of writing takes a lot of effort for me, it was a way to force myself to write and not make excuses. But when you're trying to write things that are "real," you're bound to blur the line between expression and exposure. If you have thoughts to express but are suddenly afraid of exposure, you feel paralyzed. You sit there and think, maybe I shouldn't say that on the Internet, as amazing a story as it is. Maybe I should think about it some more. And then time passes, and you lose the impulse, and the story never gets shared — except for over a glass of wine with friends, which isn't a bad thing, if being afraid to share on the Internet makes you talk to people more.

At any rate, this isn't, despite appearances, a farewell to the blog. It's just an explanation. It's possible that all of the above isn't a reason but an excuse, and that even though my qualms are valid, I simply need to step it up and come up with things to write that aren't too private, yet that still make you laugh or think or stew. Or, given that I've lost all two readers that I had, I suppose it only needs to make me laugh or think or stew. Because at the end of the day, you should write for yourself. The rest is just gravy.

And with that, I'll end this and start thinking about the post I actually wanted to write. I hope it won't take me 11 months to do it, especially since it's related to Christmas, but then I guess I'm just being super early and prepared for next year. Yeah, that's it.

P.S. I'm thinking of moving this blog to Wordpress, since it's free and has better features. But then I'd lose all the pictures (the roast chicken pictures! sob) and the URL would change. Still contemplating.

Food as a metaphor for love(lorn)

"You're the steak. He's just the cupcake."

- incredibly sage advice I gave to a millennial last night

The week I ate fried chicken three times in a row

Note: The events in this blog post happened over a month ago. Various versions of it have been sitting in my drafts folder for ... over a month. Better late than never, right? Is it too late to sneak that in as a New Year's resolution? No, it's not too late! Because it's better late than never. (We could do this all day, couldn't we?)

It should be no surprise that I'm a big fan of fried chicken. We're not just friendly -- we're downright intimate. I briefly had the fried chicken at Willie Mae's Scotch House in New Orleans as my cover photo on Facebook, until I replaced it with the steak from Peter Luger. Once, when I was two, I asked my aunt to make me a dish consisting solely of fried chicken skin. Just writing this paragraph makes me want to run over to Popeyes immediately.

But it appears that even I might have my limits. Recently [note: now "not that recently"], my love of fried chicken would be put to the test, taking me down a winding path and back up again, questioning my tastes, the mysteries of the universe, the... Oh, let's just say I ate a heck of a lot of fried chicken.

FRIED CHICKEN #1: THE REDHEAD

Not long ago ["months ago"], my friend Alexis was in town, and we made plans to have dinner with some former coworkers. One option I suggested was The Redhead in the East Village, which is known for its fried chicken -- so much so that it was named New York's best "fancy-pants fried chicken" by Serious Eats. Since Alexis and I share a love not only of bad romantic comedies, Penny Can, treating yo'self and things Liz Lemon says but also of fried chicken, this was a no-brainer. Redhead it would be.

The chicken (which I'd had before) at Redhead is, indeed, awfully good, though it doesn't surpass my favorite fried chicken at Brooklyn Bowl. Maybe because the Redhead fried chicken has a bit more batter and loud crunch to it, whereas I like mine with a tad less. Also, since this is a nice-ish sit-down restaurant, I ate the chicken with a fork and knife -- daintily, like a grown-up. It comes with a great kale, apple and walnut salad that provides a nice counterbalance to the heaviness of the fried chicken. In fact, this may be sacrilegious to say, but I almost found that salad more memorable than the chicken itself. Still, I wouldn't kick this chicken out of bed for being fried chicken.

(photo courtesy Serious Eats)

We had a lovely time, and on the way home I stopped by Momofuku Milk Bar to buy a whole Crack Pie for a dinner party the next night.

The moment I got home, I found a message waiting for me from the host of the dinner party: The party was being canceled.

FRIED CHICKEN #2: GEORGIA'S EASTSIDE BBQ

Well, here I was, all dressed up with a $45 Crack Pie and nowhere to go. And believe you me, if I were left alone with the Crack Pie, there was every possibility I would eat the entire thing myself. It would be more or less like eating six sticks of butter and downing it with half a bag of sugar. (Except more delicious.)

I needed someone to save me from myself. The next day I texted Annah, who loves Momofuku and has two kids and a husband (read: enthusiastic mouths to help me eat the pie). "Of course, we'd love to!" she responded. Relief. I headed over there, pie in hand; and she asked what kind of food I wanted to order. "How about Georgia's?" she suggested. "I don't want to build you up too much, but they make my favorite fried chicken in the city."

More fried chicken. I hesitated for about half a second, then felt guilty for hesitating. I'd never eaten at Georgia's and had wanted to try it for a while -- plus, after all, she'd said the magic phrase "favorite fried chicken." Them's fighting words.

Georgia's fried chicken oozed juiciness; it was crispy, but the batter was lighter than Redhead's. This was the kind of fried chicken you eat with your hands, and oh, I did. Delicious. The pieces seemed curiously small, not because they necessarily were small, but because I wanted more. I ate the chicken so fast, I forgot to take a picture (and I can't find a good one on the Internet -- oh well, will just have to eat there again).

As for the Crack Pie, Annah's four-year-old was unimpressed, and didn't want to finish his slice. (Annah and I, meanwhile, had two each.) But her two-year-old devoured hers, then delighted my Crack Pie-loving heart by asking for more and yelling out, "Pie! Pie! Pie!" Sweetie, in the future, when you're addicted and wandering the streets looking for more Crack Pie, please be sure to include the "pie" part.

FRIED CHICKEN #3: HENRY'S END

On my way home, I got a text from my friend N. agreeing on plans to have dinner the next night. She asked if I had thoughts on food, and then she texted: "I have to admit I have been thinking about fried chicken."

Pause. Laugh. I may consider myself a fried chicken-phile, but at that very moment, two dinners down, I could not fathom eating fried chicken again. Then I thought some more. Hmm. Fried chicken, three nights in a row? Would consuming that much fried chicken be the equivalent of locking myself in a closet with a carton of cigarettes, killing my love of a glorious vice forever? Or was this, perhaps, my Mount Everest, my White Whale -- a feat that most mortals would never attempt, but that, having been conquered, would cement my status in some mythical Fried Chicken Hall of Fame*?

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. "Sure," I texted back.

At first I'd suggested Seersucker, but at the last minute, I changed my mind and asked N. if we could instead go to Henry's End, a neighborhood restaurant I'd been meaning to try; its chicken was lauded on message boards as an unheralded treat. She was game.**

Henry's End describes its "Southern Fried Chicken" as including "garlic, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove." Taste-wise, the chicken lived up to its billing. More than anything, the cinnamon flavor came through strongly and cleanly, and it was certainly unlike the previous two nights' fried chicken. 

But it was unlike the previous two nights' fried chicken in other ways that didn't do it much favor. The batter was dense, not light and crackly; and the chicken itself was cooked fine, but not oozing with juices. This was another fork-and-knife affair, and the pieces were intimidatingly large (why do fried chicken breasts always look so massive on a plate?). It wasn't, I have to say, the most inviting plate of fried chicken I've ever  had.

My fried-chicken marathon complete (if someone had suggested fried chicken for the next night, I would have politely declined, though with a pang of regret -- well, maybe unless they had suggested Korean fried chicken, in which case I could convince myself it wasn't the SAME kind of fried chicken), I took a few moments to reflect on what I'd learned along my clucky journey. And that is

1) I like eating fried chicken with my hands

2) I like fried chicken batter that tends more toward the light and crispy, rather than the dense and hard-crunchy

3) I prefer it when the meat is so juicy it runs down your hands and your chin,

4) I'm not a fan of big, bulked-up pieces of chicken that look like they've been training with Lance Armstrong***

5) I can eat fried chicken three nights in a row. Maybe I was fading at the end a bit, and perhaps that affected my judgment; but I emerged from the Fried Chicken Closet not repulsed by my former love, but instead appreciating all the more that it has so many versions of itself to offer.

All that said, I don't know that I can make a habit of this. On the other hand, steak -- hmm...

*There should totally be a Fried Chicken Hall of Fame. 

** Pun not intended, given that the restaurant hosts a wild game festival. Well, pun maybe a little intended, after the fact.

***Too soon?

Thanksgiving: Sure, giving thanks blah blah, but it's mostly about food

I did have a lovely Thanksgiving, thanks for asking.

My family converged and there was lots and lots of good food -- of the high-quality variety, no "sweet potatoes with toasted marshmallows on top" here. (I kid. I have great fondness for sweet potatoes with toasted marshmallows on top.)

There was a deep-fried turkey (which my older brother made), arancini (younger brother), mashed potatoes (yours truly), brussels sprouts Momofuku-style (Mom), cranberries (sister-in-law), salad (sister-in-law), stuffing (sister-in-law/older brother), cornbread (Trader Joe's), gravy, chocolate pecan pie (Mom), pumpkin pie (store).

I was a little overly proud of my mashed potatoes. Normally, when I make mashed potatoes for myself, I am too lazy to bother peeling them, and too timid to add a lot of butter or milk. But mashed potatoes being my only assignment here, I worked hard on them -- I made them Robuchon-style, and laid on the butter like nobody's business. Added some creme fraiche, too, per my mom's advice. Creamy deliciousness. I wish I had the time and motivation to spend on cooking like this every day.

Of course, my mashed potatoes paled in comparison with the fried turkey and the arancini and everything else on that table. I made a collage of all the food, just because. Some things -- namely the mashed potatoes and the turkey -- show up the twice, only because I took more than one picture of them and I needed nine to fill up the square. (Yes, this is how the artistic process works. Reminds me of when the novelist Ishmael Reed came to speak at one of my English classes in college and someone asked him what was the significance of his not using quotation marks for dialogue in Mumbo Jumbo. His answer: "I thought it looked cool at the time.")

(Not that I am equating myself to Ishmael Reed.)

(Oh, never mind.)

Not pictured: pear-gorgonzola tartlets, crudite with Green Goddess dressing, cornbread, chocolate pecan pie (soooo good), pumpkin pie

Accidents will happen

I just saw a woman get hit by a car.

Correction: I saw the aftermath of a woman getting hit by a car. I was walking toward the intersection of Atlantic and Smith when I heard a loud "thunk." I turned to see a woman about 50 yards away from me, crumpled on the ground in the crosswalk, a cab stopped at an angle in front of her.

I am ashamed to say that my first reaction was not to run toward her and see if she was all right. Instead, my first reaction was to stand stock-still, stare at her and think, "Oh my God."

I would like to think that that's a normal reaction, that the brain needs time to process something so extraordinary, and that I am not, in fact, a coward with no morals. Then slowly, out of the corner of my eyes, I saw other people having the opposite instinct I did—running toward her, phones out, yelling, "Are you OK?" Something in my brain moved, and I thought, Oh, I'm supposed to be doing that, too.

I headed toward the intersection, and by that point the woman—who was wailing out in pain—was surrounded by a few people, at least one of whom was on her phone trying to get help. At that moment (I think perhaps coincidentally), an ambulance came screaming down the street and pulled over alongside us, the EMTs hopping out to bend over the fallen woman as the rest of us stood there stupidly.

To his credit, I suppose, the cab driver didn't cut and run but stayed put, standing next to his cab and looking at the woman with a penitent expression on his face. The woman standing next to me said that she had been right behind the woman as she crossed, and that she had had the light, not the cab, who had turned into her without paying attention. As a cop arrived, I asked the woman next to me if she'd talk to the police about what she saw, but she seemed uncertain. She still had one of her headphones in. I'm sure felt she had someplace to go.

Me, I hadn't seen anything. I hadn't done anything. I felt useless. I saw the EMTs finally strap the woman to a stretcher as she groped next to her for her phone, which had fallen on the floor. She put it in her pocket and I was glad, at least, to see that she could move her arm.

Every day, we pedestrians and drivers play a game of cat-and-mouse, worrying that something like this will happen to us. Most of the time, it does not. I remember the first time I ever visited New York, with my family; our cab driver hit another car—just a gentle tap in the rear bumper—and kept driving. Once, in Washington DC, I was exiting the train station when a cab inching forward hit me in the leg, then drove away. I turned to see an attendant looking at me. "Did you see that?" I asked. "I sure did," he said. He seemed to be on my side, but what could he do? (Once I got to the conference where I was going, I mentioned the incident to the women there, who shrugged and laughed. "Happens all the time!" they said.)

We aren't invulnerable. Far from it. There are lies and truths we tell ourselves every day just to get out of the house. If we didn't, I suppose we'd never leave our couches. As I looked at the woman, crying out in pain, now surrounded by medics and cops, I thought, I hope she's OK. I thought, I wish I could do something, but I can't. I thought, I hope someone calls her family for her. I thought, I'm glad it wasn't me.

Then I turned and walked slowly home.

Something you don't see every day (anymore)

This car was sitting outside the place where I had dinner last night. I have no idea ... what exactly happened here. Was this hurricane-related? Or not? What the heck is that white stuff? The car was at a crazy angle to the curb, with the driver's-side door open, as though either the owner or the thief had to take off in a hurry. The front fender was on the ground. It was like a crime scene, and the victim was the car.

As my friend Kevin and I stared into the rusted, stripped-out shell and walked on, a guy behind us laughed. "It's like Brooklyn in the '80s," he said.

Now put your hands up, POTUS

I'm not sure I agree with the headline-writer that Obama "nails" Beyonce's signature dance move here: I don't see any hip-twisting or head-moving. Really, there's no dancing here at all. Disappointing, Mr. President! (But still, awfully cute.)

Obama Nails the "Single Ladies" Wave

Review Haiku: Skyfall

Bond: brooding yet sharp
"M" having mommy issues?
Overall, great fun. 

Typo Ninja: I say Petraeus, you say Patraeus

Yes, I get that "Petraeus" isn't that easy to spell -- all those vowels! -- but this guy's name is all over the news right now, so it wouldn't hurt to, you know, check that sort of thing. Maybe the writer was thinking of Harry Potter's patronus? Not that anyone would want, as their protective energy animal, a former CIA director who cheated on his wife and had to resign in disgrace. Just a guess.

From the Atlantic Wire: