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It is December so lets get festive

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I did hope to have the latest novel finished by end of year, which looking back was perhaps overly ambitious. It's in good shape but definitely needs work still. Between our busy season at work, NaClYoHo in November, the general madness of December, and dating on top of it all, it isn't even that I haven't had time (though...kinda) but also that I've felt too scattered to focus.

I think sometime soon I'm going to have to actually set aside deliberate time for it. It's always a little more difficult in winter because leaving the house to go somewhere else to focus, the library or a cafe, involves so many extra steps. I have to put on socks to go outside? What nonsense is that? And since more people do more indoor stuff the cafes are crowded, and so is the library. I keep looking longingly at coworking companies where you can just rent a desk/cubicle and go whenever you like, but so far those are a bit beyond my means.

In any case, if I can pull my shit together a little this week, I'll have time to write while traveling, which I'll be doing a lot of, so there's that. Skipping all the difficult stuff so that I could get the bulk of the book written was a good idea, it's just coping now with having to write ONLY the difficult stuff that I'm struggling with. Still, nil desperandum, when a book is this far along it's rare to abandon it, and I have a couple of short stories I want to post when I post up the new novel.

You'd think I'd have learned patience by now but such is not the lot of the writer with ADHD, I suppose. :D

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Hi! You posted recently about notifying a charity when they're a You posted about notifying a charity when they're a beneficiary in your will, and how it helps everyone. I have a charity as a last-ditch beneficiary - i.e., if all the people I would rather my estate go to are dead then it goes to them instead of the government. Is that something I should notify them about? At that point my estate would be executed by the government, so there wouldn't be anyone left to reach out to.

In cases like that, where the nonprofit is a backup, I don't think you need to notify unless you want to -- notifying helps us to work with people who are definitely going to give, and in some ways it helps us to predict-out how many donations we'll get to the bequest program over time, but when it's a contingency, it's really up to you.

I know there have been times when we've been glad to know of a contingency bequest, but usually when it's a large amount and there's Inheritance Drama. For example, a parent with two kids leaving everything to Kid One, and if Kid One predeceases them, we get everything; Kid Two often tries to contest that, or even just conceal it from us in some cases. At that point it's helpful to have documentation of the parent's wishes.

But if there's no particular drama and the nonprofit is a last-ditch, I think you're fine not to. It's a nice thing to do regardless!

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I believe the menu is set! I decided against making trash can nachos because, well, I'm not that big on nachos, but I found an appropriate substitute.

The Feast Of Seven Flavortowns will be as follows:

Pork Belly Watermelon Salad with Sugarcane Vinaigrette

2. Garlic-Onion Tortilla Cake with

3. Trash Can Nacho Cheese Sauce

4. Chicken Avocado Egg Rolls with

5. Triple-B Bourbon Sauce

6. Deep Fried Pizza Bites (my own recipe but his version is here)

7. American Pie Cocktail

And then the basque cheesecake for dessert.

Will I be able to eat all of this? Absolutely not. But it's all basically appetizer/finger food that I can reheat later, and most of them can have the recipe reduced pretty easily, making it less wasteful. I might be cheating a little treating sauces as dishes in their own right but both are fairly complex and will require cooking, so I'm giving myself a pass. Especially since the pork belly salad recipe isn't online so I'm back-engineering it.

This morning I saw a video about basque cheesecake cross my dash; it's a dish I've wanted to try making, which reminded me of the Crostata Ricotta e Viscioli (another cheesecake recipe) that I made for last year's Roman Jewish New Years Feast. Which in turn reminded me that I'm home in Chicago for New Year's again this year, and it might be time to prepare another feast.

Last year's was fun and some dishes made it into regular rotation in my kitchen but I don't think I want to recreate the meal. I could try some different Italian dishes, I did want to try making arancini, but nothing else is striking me as thematic or amusing so far. I could do a tamale feast but goddamn tamales are a lot of work.

Maybe I should try this year for an Eddie Rambler banquet; I could source some of the more outrageous of Guy Fieri's recipes and go to town. The trash tower was inspired by his tower of nachos, and I know he has other wild concoctions. I could make the pork belly watermelon salad that made both @scifigrl47 and I yell loudly when we saw it being prepared (pork belly is confit in oil then deep fried).

Hm. A plan begins to form. Nacho tower appetizer with pork belly watermelon salad, something suitably horrifying for the main, and a basque cheesecake (I bet that dude has a recipe for one) to finish.

For too long Chef Fieri has run unopposed for mayor of Flavortown. Time to challenge him for this highest of offices.

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As the cat dad of an Extreme Orange I see you, hiding kitty!

[ID: An art piece done in Gorey's signature semi-gothic style, featuring a man in a dressing gown sitting in a green wing chair and reading, his feet up on an ottoman, a tall narrow bookshelf full of books behind him. There is an orange cat atop the bookshelf, one lying on one of the shelves, one on the back of the chair, one on his lap, one on two large books nearby, and one, just the tail and butt visible, hiding behind the ottoman.]

"Book Collector with Six Cats (one hidden)" by Edward Gorey

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I went to the forest that makes you have multiple pronouns and accidentally touched some poison ivy there

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Oh god he has a recipe for Italian Beef sandwiches.

It's actually pretty good -- not traditional, but way better than the recipes that call for deli roast beef. I'd try it but I already have like 3lbs of Italian Beef in the freezer and I like my recipe, and his isn't especially "outrageous" in the way I'm looking for. But I am still laughing.

It's difficult to try and find his most outrageous recipes since the ones on the Food Network site are curated for actual edibility and otherwise it's just this massive alphabetical list, but I might have a go at the Triple-B Burgers, I like the sauce recipe.

This morning I saw a video about basque cheesecake cross my dash; it's a dish I've wanted to try making, which reminded me of the Crostata Ricotta e Viscioli (another cheesecake recipe) that I made for last year's Roman Jewish New Years Feast. Which in turn reminded me that I'm home in Chicago for New Year's again this year, and it might be time to prepare another feast.

Last year's was fun and some dishes made it into regular rotation in my kitchen but I don't think I want to recreate the meal. I could try some different Italian dishes, I did want to try making arancini, but nothing else is striking me as thematic or amusing so far. I could do a tamale feast but goddamn tamales are a lot of work.

Maybe I should try this year for an Eddie Rambler banquet; I could source some of the more outrageous of Guy Fieri's recipes and go to town. The trash tower was inspired by his tower of nachos, and I know he has other wild concoctions. I could make the pork belly watermelon salad that made both @scifigrl47 and I yell loudly when we saw it being prepared (pork belly is confit in oil then deep fried).

Hm. A plan begins to form. Nacho tower appetizer with pork belly watermelon salad, something suitably horrifying for the main, and a basque cheesecake (I bet that dude has a recipe for one) to finish.

For too long Chef Fieri has run unopposed for mayor of Flavortown. Time to challenge him for this highest of offices.

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This morning I saw a video about basque cheesecake cross my dash; it's a dish I've wanted to try making, which reminded me of the Crostata Ricotta e Viscioli (another cheesecake recipe) that I made for last year's Roman Jewish New Years Feast. Which in turn reminded me that I'm home in Chicago for New Year's again this year, and it might be time to prepare another feast.

Last year's was fun and some dishes made it into regular rotation in my kitchen but I don't think I want to recreate the meal. I could try some different Italian dishes, I did want to try making arancini, but nothing else is striking me as thematic or amusing so far. I could do a tamale feast but goddamn tamales are a lot of work.

Maybe I should try this year for an Eddie Rambler banquet; I could source some of the more outrageous of Guy Fieri's recipes and go to town. The trash tower was inspired by his tower of nachos, and I know he has other wild concoctions. I could make the pork belly watermelon salad that made both @scifigrl47 and I yell loudly when we saw it being prepared (pork belly is confit in oil then deep fried).

Hm. A plan begins to form. Nacho tower appetizer with pork belly watermelon salad, something suitably horrifying for the main, and a basque cheesecake (I bet that dude has a recipe for one) to finish.

For too long Chef Fieri has run unopposed for mayor of Flavortown. Time to challenge him for this highest of offices.

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Transcript:

Dean Smith: Report From The Front

Imagine working at the Post Office and receiving this message from one of your pilots:

Dead sticked

Flying low

Only place available

On cow

Killed cow

Wrecked plane

Scared me

Smith

(followed by an image of Smith, a dark-haired man with heavy brows and a thick mustache.)

Mi nayme is Deen

And wen I fly

Mi styck gone ded

I do aspy

A playce to land

Unhappey now

I land, I'm scaird

I kill a cow.

I don't think I previously posted this but I just found it in my photo roll and had to share (possibly again). This is a placard from the flight section of the Henry Ford Museum. And that is my bredlik.

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Amon my way to see for myself...

Archaeologists digging on a Pyramid in Egypt have found a mummy covered in chocolate and nuts. Experts believe it to be Pharaoh Roche.

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The new heated mattress pad is on the bed! So far, kitty approved.

I'm not sure I wholeheartedly recommend the brand I bought. The shady Korean importers let me down so I bought a Beautyrest brand queen-sized pad and it's....

Well, it has deep pocket corners, which I like because I have a tall mattress. It heats up well and gets very warm. Both things I pretty much required. It has dual controls, one per side, which I wasn't nuts about but at queen size and above they ALL do. Supposedly you can switch them on remotely somehow but I haven't figured that part out yet.

What I really dislike is that it also has two power plugs, so you have to use up a whole outlet (or get a power strip) to power both sides. That's downright irksome, especially since they don't want you to use a surge protector or power strip, but I ignored them and used a power strip anyway.

So we shall see, but at least the cats are happy :)

[ID: two photos of my bed; in one it is nearly made up and turned down, with a grey fitted sheet and yellow duvet cover. In the second image, Dearborn the Tortie and Polk the tabby are sitting loaf-style, only slightly suspicious looking, on the duvet.]

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@scifigrl47 sent me an amazing D&D Mimic Christmas ornament, and I knew immediately he needed to live on my footed egg cup.

[ID: a photograph of a round Christmas ornament with purple wrinkly skin, multiple yellow eyes, and a tongue emerging grotesquely from a sharp-toothed mouth. The ornament rests on a white china egg cup which stands on human feet. I have made a Creature.]

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I don't know if it's an ADHD thing or just a me thing but I've realized that I get really anxious about major life changes because they often feel illegal.

Like, I know it's harder for people with ADHD to envision the future, and I know Autism can make adapting to change difficult -- I'm not Autistic but many family members are and yeah transitions were very stressful because of it, as a kid. But I keep thinking what if I get caught.

By who? For what? I just started sleeping with a new person I like, who is safe and likes me too. I recently started a new medication that might alter my brain chemistry. Neither of these things are illegal or even especially illicit. But they feel that way.

And it's not that, for example, I think sex is something to get into trouble for, I wasn't raised that it was sinful or anything, I had a pretty sex positive upbringing. But it's been a long time since I've had a partner and it's a major change in my status quo for the last ten-fifteen years, and that feels like it could fuck up my whole life. How? Brain doesn't say. It's just any "new normal" activates my flight response. If I caused it I'm responsible for it, and if it goes south, I'm on the hook. What hook? THE HOOK.

I don't know where that comes from. But some days I want to bolt my responsibilities and lock myself inside my home forever. I don't, at least not usually, but it's tempting. I know the "and I'm being so brave about it" meme is a joke, but sometimes yeah, I'm doing some really minor normal thing that people do all the time and I'm being so brave about it.

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This feels uniquely designed to enrage all of Tumblr.

[ID: a sign in the window of a beauty shop, Kiehls, which reads "happy holidays" but because it's printed in a tree shape it looks like H APP YHOL IDAYS!]

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i just said out loud, “you know what really gargles my goyles?” and then i had to just sit there and accept that i now live in a world where someone said those words in that order. and now so do you. what a tangled web we weave

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Yeah or you might end up stout.

It’s a five-minute walk from my house to the pub.

It’s a thirty-five minute walk from the pub to my house.

The difference is staggering.

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[ID: A series of photographs from my recent trip to Detroit; the top two are a drinks menu from Cafe D'Mongo's where I got the Detroit Brown -- Crown Royal, Angostura Bitters, Vernors -- and a fantastic raspberry pastry from Canelle nearby. Below, an image of the entrance to a promenade at Eastern Market, the big year-round farmer's market, set against a cloudy sky. Then more food, including a Detroit pizza from Como's and Eggs Norwegian (eggs benedict with spinach and smoked salmon) from Le Supreme. Lastly, three images from the Zoo Lights walk, including whales, seals, a moose, mushrooms, and illuminated trees.]

Greetings from Detroit! Or rather, retroactive greetings, since I was there this weekend and am back home now. I got to have some delicious food, visit interesting shopping destinations, and freeze my LEDs off at the Zoo Lights! (Worth it.)

I got to see, hang out with, and talk shit with good friends, but this trip was also unusual because I have a friend who grew up in Detroit but moved away decades ago and hasn't been back, and this is the first time I've been there since meeting him.

He came from an abusive home and Detroit didn't have many good memories for him; I told him I wouldn't send photos or talk about it if he wanted, but he actually ended up sharing a lot with me and enjoying seeing Detroit through my eyes, which I think was somewhat healing for him. He said it looked as though the Detroit he knew had mostly died away in favor of something new, and it felt like the old memories had died off with it.

As distracting as it can sometimes be to be trying to take and send photos, text context and have conversations all while touristing and socializing, I do also love sharing the places I go with people. Especially for folks who can't get out much, like when I go to the museum and send paintings to my parents, it feels good -- productive, even -- to be able to bring a city to someone in that way.