To enter, post your entry on your blog. Then, e-mail me at MSTrox@gmail.com with a link to your entry. I will then make a round-up post sharing your art on my website, as well as the requisite linkage.

This week’s theme?

If I hear one more “you are the wind beneath my wings” I’m going to vomit. Literally. All over the floor and hopefully on Miss Suzie’s shoes. She’s a curmudgeon of a woman. 4.’11?, 80, and nosey as hell. I’m hope it has chunks. My vomit. Slouching in my chair I eyeball the happy couple. My best friend and my ex-fiancée together for ever. And their wedding song.

You Had Me From Hello

Said hello came when I finally arranged for my life long best friend to meet my fiancée.

I hope they choke on the wedding cake. Or possibly get a tin can stuck in the wedding car’s exhaust pipe. Karma happens.

I took a bit of a run with it. I don’t actually get to the aforementioned wedding. Or the wedding. And I didn’t actually write a story, but just a dialogue (it’s my playwright roots, I guess). I like making dialogue and the rest of the stuff bores me sometimes.

So think of this as a dialogue-only prequel to the actual prompt. Of all the Arts and Farts and Crafts so far, this one may be the most worth-developing to me.

You Had Me From Hello

Very Hank

“Hello.”
“Hello.”
“How are you?”
“I’m engaged.”
“Oh, congratulations! I’m single. To mingle.”
“I’m also fine, thanks for asking.”
“You’re most welcome. Do you have a ring?”
“Oh, yeah, sure, right here.”
“That’s a nice looking ring. I’m Bruce, by the way.”
“Bruce. Pleasure. I’m Juanita.”
“Juanita? Interesting. You don’t look very…”
“Very…”
“You don’t look very Juanita.”
“Well, I am. I’m not Hispanic, though. The help was named Juanita.”
“Named after the maid.”
“My father insisted.”
“Of course.”
“She was prettier than my mom.”
BEAT
“So where’s…Mr. Juanita?”
“Over there. That’s Hank.”
“Oh. Hank. He looks very Hank.”
“He is. He is very Hank.”
“Oh…that’s a shame. I’m sorry to hear that..”
“It’s okay most of the time.”
“Oh, yeah, no, I’m sure.”
“I’m not interested, though, Bruce.”
“I’m just giving this my best shot.”
“My plate’s already full.”
“Well, there’s always room for some meat on the side.”
*eye roll*
“Dessert? I wasn’t sure what was the better line.”
“I’m already cheating on Hank. With his best friend, actually.”
“His best friend.”
“Rudolph.”
“Rudolph.”
“Mmm hmm.”
“Rudolph. Rudolph. Big red nose? And…?” *gestures antlers*
“You’re very funny, Bruce. Bye.”

The Wind

“Hello?”
“Hello.”
“How was your day?”
“Oh, you know. Pretty good. Yours?”
“What did you do today?”
“Well, same-old, really. Stapled some letters. Mailed some letters. Opened some letters.”
“No kidding.”
“It’s the circle of life and it moves us all. How was yours?”
“Hank.”
“What’s up?”
“Hank.”
“Yeah?”
“We need to talk.”
“You know I’m always here to talk.”
“Are you going to talk or are you just going to sit there an say ‘uh-huh?’”
“Is that what I usually do?”
“Yes.”
“Then that is probably what I’ll do now.”
“Good. I don’t want you to say anything anyway.”
“Then it’s settled. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
BEAT
“So go on. Talk at me.”
“I think it’s time we went different ways.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m just…we’re just not happy, are we?”
“Well.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I saw it coming anyway.”
“What? No you didn’t. When?”
“Well, probably around the time you started sleeping with Rudolph.”
“No! I wouldn’t do…don’t be paranoid.”
“No, he told me.”
“When?”
“The first time you did it. He felt pretty bad about it.”
“That was two years ago!”
“Yeah, it sure was.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“You were happier.”
“What kind of person doesn’t-”
“Well, you know.”
“Is there anything more to say?”
“I’m keeping the Muppets on Ice tickets.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Hank. Bye.”

So there’s that.

Nichole’s is forthcoming, as is anybody else’s if they’re so inclined.

Next week’s theme, as selected by me:

Saying goodbye

Let’s honor my friend Nichole’s exit from our workplace by writing stories about saying goodbye (ps this will be significantly less fun if nobody else participates :-p)

Entries can be submitted in any medium. The end-date for submissions is Thursday July 24. Be sure to notify me at MSTrox@gmail.com!

The comment turn-out was huge for my last TWD entry.  Maybe if I make stuff explode every time, people will continue to love me.  I just got back from a five-day vacation, so I have a lot of reading to do.  I’ll be meme-ing and reading your blogs in the near future.  At any rate, I should fail more often!  At least I know people will read what I write!

This week’s recipe was Cherry Rhubarb Cobbler.  I was super pumped, because I love fruit; I love cobbler; and I’ve not yet had a chance to taste rhubarb.  Looks like I’d have to wait a little longer for my last dream to come true.  I walked to the spot in my grocery store that I KNEW had rhubarb the other day, and it was all gone.  Same in all the other grocery stores.  No rhubarb!?  What if I wanted to throw a late-summer rhubarbeque?

Dorie sez: “The biscuit topping is a great crown for almost any kind of cobbler or crisp.”

Emboldened by the words of the second-most-powerful Greenspan in the world, I decided to replace the rhubarb with Granny Smith apples, which I happened to have sitting around.  12 oz. of peeled, cored Granny Smiths replaced the directed 12 oz. of rhubarb.

I made the filling according to recipe.  I made the topping according to recipe.  Everything really, truly was going swimmingly.  And boringly.  How was I supposed to draw the readers back into my ugly website?  I’d have to create a ruckus.

So I punched my sister in the head

After that?  Well, the cobbler tasted fantastic.  And despite the fact that I am in my mid-twenties, I was grounded for three months.

By the way, I made another batch of last week’s Chocolate Pudding over the weekend.  I replaced the whole milk with 2% (just because it was handy).  Excepting the leaky food processor, nary a mess was made and it was a huge hit with my family.

For 1/12 of the recipe:

My very close, personal friend MacDuff (hey, it’s not every day somebody memes you for a meme!) memed me, saying, “I like to think [Ugly Food for an Ugly Dude] is George Clooney’s personal blog, because George seems like a baker.”

Sorry to disappoint you, MacDuff, but “Despair thy charm; and let the angel whom thou still hast served tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripp’d.”  I don’t know what this quote has to do with the following picture of somebody who is, most assuredly, not George Clooney.

Honk if you like poopie, indeed!

Well, MacDuff, I bear a charmed life, which must not yield to one of woman memed. As such, here is my memed meme which I will meme to many others.

1. Link to the person who “tagged” you. MacDuff!
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself. Just you wait, Internetty blog!
4. Tag six people at the end of your post. I’m actually tagging seven.  Not a one of them will reblog this.
5. Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know your entry is up.  BOMBS AWAY, MACDUFF!

1. My perfect vacation:  no work, at home, all alone, watching DVDs, eating what I want.
2. I listen to either the Food Network or the “90’s” music channel on my digital cable when I go to bed.
3. Today I rocked out to “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” by Electric Light Orchestra and “Peace Train” by Cat Stevens.
4. Until the age of twelve, I kept a card catalog of various Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers characters.  I updated it daily, every time I saw a new episode.
5. This is the most recent entry in my stream-of-consciousness personal journal/composition book:  “Is it weird that I had the most genuine human interaction I’ve had in a long time with the Starbucks girl?  Sure, I didn’t need the 250 calories from the new Orange Mango Banana Vivanno, but she sold it.  I asked her and I totally cared what she thought!  Today I faced the same temptation as yesterday with the sticky buns.  I didn’t eat one, but for some reason I wanted to in spite of their inborn suckiness.  I must just want to stuff my mouth (which I did at our lunch party, and again with this smoothie).  Writing at Starbucks.  I’m one step closer to a walking, talking cliche.”
6. A random entry from my writing/idea book:  “You’re never fully dressed without a pants.” (undated)

So there’s an insight into my psyche.  I’m sleepy.  Good evening.

Nichole at Stained Glass
Derek at The Magical Monkeyshines of Baron Von TrundleBed
Brian at Sabotage!/Review the World
Chris at The 3MTE Existentialist
Kate at Hey Kate!
Conor at Conor Schaefer
Joli at Exuberance is Beauty

To enter, post your entry on your blog. Then, e-mail me at MSTrox@gmail.com with a link to your entry. I will then make a round-up post sharing your art on my website, as well as the requisite linkage.

This week’s theme?

Use a character (or characters) from a preexisting work of fiction.

Like all of my ideas, I didn’t actually sit around and think it up. For some strange reason, Lando Calrissian being sent to the high school guidance counselor actually popped into my head during the week. I’m not sure how “quality” this entry is. I wrote it quick (and I was so overwhelmed by the response to my pudding post that I spent a lot of time reading other people’s entries and trying to comment. I’m still not caught up in that regard. Anyway, here’s my lame and weird entry.

You’re A Good Man, Lando Calrissian

You’re young, handsome and debonair. You have an innate fashion sense. I like you. I really do. You show so much promise. That’s why I called you into my office today.

You’re throwing your life away, Lando Calrissian. You hang out with the bad crowds. You know the types. The ones who think they’re so strapping in their beat-up white shirts and black vests. Space pirates. The dregs of society. You always wanted something more out of life. You wanted to be a lawyer. You wanted to go into politics. Those dreams will disappear in a flurry of Sabbacc and blaster fire.

Do you really want to be a card player? Gambler? Scoundrel?

I believe in you. You could do great things. You could become a governor! A senator! Baron administrator of any city you desire! Instead, you’re going to end up a corpse in the depths of Coruscant. A lifeless corpse. I should know. I’m a guidance counselor.

All you have to do is take the fist step. Better your situation. Get into the Imperial Academy. Then, after that’s taken care of, worry about going to grad school; taking your LSATS. You have the knowledge and charisma to win at whatever you do, but if all you want to do is spice and death sticks…I’m sorry for getting choked up, but it’s just so disappointing to see great promise go to waste.

Don’t even worry so much about the LSATS at this point. Baby steps, Mr. Calrissian. I can tell you’ve been losing sleep, and frankly I have too. Go on the straight and narrow. You’ll be able to stop worrying so much. You still have a chance. You will still have a future, unless your planet is destroyed by global warming or a Death Star.

To get to sleep, my grandmother used to go through the senate supreme chancellors in her head. Took her mind off other things, activated the memory instead of the active brain, etc. She could do it chronologically, reverse-chronologically, alphabetically, and reverse-alphabetically. If that didn’t work, she moved on to the grand moffs (who presumably bored her to sleep).

I guess what I’m saying is, if your mind is racing, get it racing to something inconsequential and boring. That’s why counting banthas works, at any rate.

Also, what I’m saying is that Darth Vader will blow up your planet and eat your children.

Nichole also went the movie route, and I’m sure you’ll be able to tell what “character” she utilized. Here’s what she had to say: “Complete and utter crap. A character from Indiana Jones. Let me know if you can tell who. Did I mention that this was crap. Trash it, right away!” Sounds like she wants her entry on the Internet to me!

Hand-made from a small tannery in Louisiana. The best. Never faltering, always crackling. With energy.

The sound. *CRAAACCK* My one small pleasure.

This what I am. I was created to snap sharply, splitting air. To herd. To encourage submission of all wild beasts. Especially horses.

But this man. This odd, peculiar, chameleon is different. Asking not to submit great beasts (as small as I might be I am excellent at this), but to warn away those who would destroy the powerless. A Sidewinder, a rattler.

We threaten, guide, and then escape, evading short puffs of iron. A death defying waltz. Tap. Tap.

When I was created I expected my destiny to encourage great post carriages carrying vast treasures across the once great plains.

Instead, I sat unused, unacknowledged for years. Until one boy brought my destiny.

One boy that changed it all.

I have been to the end and back of this flat world. Pyramids. God. Aliens. Great treasures to tempt the saintly and knowledge to corrupt the incorruptible. He is neither. A scholar. And I have no desire to turn on him (as all eventually do). A weapon that is not…admiring a man dying from the disease of humanity. Then what will I be? What is left of old wrapped leather? A threat. A warning. Fading away in this world of machines.

Forgetting once that I was crafted by hand to become a conqueror. And yet I guide instead.

Next week’s theme is as follows:

If I hear one more “you are the wind beneath my wings” I’m going to vomit. Literally. All over the floor and hopefully on Miss Suzie’s shoes. She’s a curmudgeon of a woman. 4.’11″, 80, and nosey as hell. I’m hope it has chunks. My vomit. Slouching in my chair I eyeball the happy couple. My best friend and my ex-fiancée together for ever. And their wedding song.

You Had Me From Hello.

Said hello came when I finally arranged for my life long best friend to meet my fiancée.

I hope they choke on the wedding cake. Or possibly get a tin can stuck in the wedding car’s exhaust pipe. Karma happens.

Entries can be submitted in any medium. The end-date for submissions is Thursday July 24. Be sure to notify me at MSTrox@gmail.com!

Last week’s Double Crusted Blueberry Pie was DIFFICULT.  I was so happy to hear that this week’s would be chocolate pudding, a recipe I’ve made dozens of times.

1)  Open packet of pudding mix.

2)  Add milk and/or water.

3)  Shake shake shake shake shake.

Okay, so it’s bound to be more difficult than that, but not much, right?

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I didn’t have to buy any new equipment for this recipe, which is nice after last week’s $50 investment.  I picked up some whole milk (I am trying to follow these recipes to the letter at the moment).  Otherwise, the rest are pretty standard pantry items.  I typoed earlier and wrote “panty items,” but I swear it wasn’t Freudian.

I substituted semisweet chocolate chips for the bittersweet chocolate chips, which didn’t seem like it’d be too big of a problem.  It’s better than another emergency run to the grocery store.  Gas ain’t cheap.

What follows is a testament in my ability to ignore instructions totally; make the biggest messes; and have the worst luck in the world.

MISTAKE #1: Dorie Sez:  “Add the dry ingredients.”  I add the pre-mixed dry ingredients (cornstarch, cocoa powder, salt, sugar), and then for some reason I also add the chocolate chips and the butter (which come far later in the process).

MISTAKE #2: When adding boiling milk to the food processor through the top hole, be sure to remove the “pusher” from the hole–otherwise the milk will go all over your food processor, counter, floor, pants, etc.

MISTAKE #3: Not so much a mistake as a capper to the whole thing.  I tried to salvage my batch of pudding, and in the step where you pour it BACK into the saucepan, I missed the pan with half of the pudding.

It wasn’t all my fault though.  I was blessed with the leakiest food processor ever.  The end result?

This:

And this:

And this:

That’s right.  That was my end result.  It looked and tasted like chocolate porridge–not entirely unpleasing, but not entirely pudding either.  I was devastated.  I didn’t want to do Tuesdays with Dorie anymore.  I didn’t want to bake.  I didn’t want to blog.  I just wanted to go to sleep.

While I could easily have gone with the “ugly food for an ugly dude” excuse, I had to prevail.  After some cleanup, it was round two.   After chastising myself and rereading the recipe multiple times, I was good to go.  I followed it to the letter.

Success!  It felt so good to actually do something right.  Sure, my food processor is still leaky.  And sure, my floor has reached levels of stickiness as of yet unknown to mankind.  But I HAVE SIX CUPS OF PUDDING.  Tastes pretty good, too.  Far better than that instant pudding, no matter how fun it is to shake it all up.

The rest will go towards the dinner I’m cooking for my girlfriend Rachel tomorrow.  The menu:  baked chicken breasts, corn on the cob, salad, chocolate pudding.  I’ve never cooked anybody a real dinner before, so wish me luck.  If all else fails, I’ll have a lot of extra pudding.

Things I’ve Learned

1.  Read carefully.
2.  If at first you don’t succeed, etc!

For 1/6 of the recipe:

Black marble composition books.  I own boxes full of them, and they’re pretty much all empty.  There’s something nostalgic about these things.  I was forced to write “journal entries” in these during Sunday School when I was little.  I remember quite clearly answering a prompt about Moses with a longwinded answer about Moses Malone.  I was a smartass even then.

These things also symbolize hope for me.  100 sheets; 200 pages.  Blank and ready for me to fill them with my amazing ideas (or poop jokes).  Any time I see them available in a store, I buy at least one.  I never write anything in them.  I have boxes full of the things.  I love them more than anything.

Also pictured:  Star Wars bedsheets.  These date back to the Special Edition days, so there’s not a Ben Quadrinaros or Count Dooku in sight.  This is the way it should be.

Reviews are coming in for early episodes of the Star Wars:  Clone Wars cartoon, and they’re overwhelmingly positive.  Star Wars has been a pasttime for me since birth, and a bit of an obsession for me since about 1997.  I’ve read the books that tell you the backstories of all those stupid puppet aliens in the Cantina.  I amassed thousands of dollars worth of toys (which I am now selling for far less than their current market value, plug plug).  It’s good to have something Warsy to be excited about again.

I guess it’s good to have anything to be excited about.  For the last few years, I’ve been seperating my “blog life” from my personal life (for the most part).  When I stopped personal-blogging, I think I stopped personal-living as well.  I holed up in my iPod and my personal computer, attempting to one-up my own silly jokes for a readership of three people.  I hid myself away; developed a fashionable eating disorder; lost contact with my closest friends; and generally stopped feeling anything at all.  I used to think people that said, “I don’t feel anything anymore” were full of James Dean bullshit, but then I stopped feeling things.

Last night I went out to dinner with my family.  We went to Italian Delight in Linglestown, PA.  My parents have been pretty regular customers since they discovered the place, and I’ve been there a few times.  It’s a nicer sit-down establishment than a lot of pizzerias (such as Tonino’s, my favorite Harrisburg slice joint).  The restaurant recently changed ownership apparently, and the pizza recipe appears to have changed (for the worse, but it’s still decent).  I had the grilled chicken salad.  Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, croutons, pickles, black olives, peppers, and enough chicken to make you feel like you’re getting your eight dollars’ worth.  It was nice to have an evening with just my parents.

Tonight I went for an hour’s walk and grabbed a coffee from Starbucks.  I’m not particularly fond of their new Pike’s Place blend, but it’s a hot drink and I like the store’s atmosphere.  Maybe I could fill more composition books if I became cliche and sat around Starbucks.  Or at the very least I’d start wearing scarves and ill-fitting black sweaters.

Keep your eye on Ugly Movies for the latest reviews.  I’ve been adding movies as I see them, and also crazy amounts of older movies.  I saw The Incredible Hulk tonight, which was super-fun popcorn viewing.

Coming next week:  The Dark Knight, which promises to be the movie of the summer.  Also, The X-Files:  I Want to Believe, which excites me more for some reason (possibly because I am retarded).

What else is there in life?  My girlfriend’s name is Rachel.  We recently had a rough go of things, but we’re working hard.  These things take effort, right?

I’ve been without a car since early May, but that will soon be remedied.  I’m getting a 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid in the next couple weeks.  I could wave my fanny in the air and talk about “blah blah blah emissions” and “save the earth fiddle dee dee,” but really I am buying this car for the superior gas mileage.  I do most of my selfless things for selfish reasons (and, oddly enough, vice versa).

It’s Saturday night, and I’m relaxing and blogging.  I think it’s time to start filling up some composition books.

To enter, post your entry on your blog. Then, e-mail me at MSTrox@gmail.com with a link to your entry. I will then make a round-up post sharing your art on my website, as well as the requisite linkage.

This week’s theme?

An amnesiac man wakes up naked standing in the middle of Times Square at rush hour. He doesn’t know how he got there, and his only clue is an iPod strapped to his arm in a runners band. It contains the audiobook of Dante’s Inferno, a jingle for Wrigley’s, every work done by Beethoven, and the sound of a door shutting on an infinite loop.

My goal with this piece was to take the clearly “zany” prompt (chosen by my friend Nichole) and turn it into something poignant or at least serious.

Because symphonies are involved in the prompt, I decided to write in symphony form.  I lost my interest in following symphonic form somewhere along the way, mainly because this is supposed to be a fun freewrite.  I don’t believe I’ll be expanding upon this entry, but I’ll definitely keep the “symphony” form in mind for future writing–especially poetry.

Here is my entry.

Unfinished Symphony

First Movement (Allegro)

Overture. Open eyes. Pavement. Flesh. Strings swell.

Confusion. I look down and see my protrusion. Praying that it’s all an illusion; no obvious conclusion.

Motion. Locomotion. No emotion. Nothing but an ocean of commotion. Hustle; bustle; rush; no hush. I look down and blush. A nude, lewd dude waiting to be booed by some prude. Screwed.

Second Movement

So this must be amnesia. I know that much. In fact, for somebody who has forgotten everything, I seem to know quite a bit. I know that ball of feathers over there is a pigeon. I know that lump under the blankets is a homeless person (and I know that if I had money to give them, they would just spend it on alcohol). Nobody is reacting to my hideous nakedness, so I know that I am in New York. I can read the letters on the side of every building. “Toys ‘R’ Us” on my right; “TKTS” in the middle of the road. How can I know all of this, but I don’t remember my name?

How does the brain know what to forget?

Do I need some sort of visual stimulus to remind me? If my father is still alive and I see him walking down the street, will I recognize him? Does my brain file things in a “vault”-a sort of elementary school permanent record, locked away and never to be seen again? In amnesia, does my brain automatically forget personal information? Does it not want to remember?

You only “remember” the stuff you think about anyway. You don’t walk down the street and “remember” a duck, or even “remember” the fact that ducks exist. When you see a duck, you know. That’s when you truly believe. That’s when you truly believe in a duck. So maybe my brain is normal. There’s no vault. There’s no forgetting. There’s just me. I don’t want to think about my past, and so I do not remember my past. I don’t believe in my past, and I don’t believe in myself.

There is no Cornelius Weatherberry (which, for all I know, is my given name). There is only Naked Man, resplendent in his opalescent, paste-white glory.

What happened to my clothes? Don’t know, don’t care, don’t want to think about it. Why do I have this MP3 player strapped to my arm? Don’t know, don’t care, don’t want to think about it. I shuffle through the music like a coroner picking through the wallet of a body at a grisly crime scene. Every piece of available information can be used to identify the corpse. In my case: slim pickings. The abridged Inferno by Dante, divided into nine tracks to represent the nine circles of hell; the sound of a door shutting; the complete works of Ludwig Von Beethoven; the complete collection of Wrigley’s gum commercial jingles.

The eclectic mix of words, music, and sounds? Don’t know, care, et cetera. It’s the statement of a great mint. It’s Doublemint gum.

I chose Party Shuffle, because I bet I liked to party in my previous life.

Track one.

For such defects, and not for other guilt,
Lost are we and are only so far punished,
That without hope we live on in desire.”

Great grief seized on my heart when this I heard,
Because some people of much worthiness
I knew, who in that Limbo were suspended.

“Tell me, my Master, tell me, thou my Lord,”
Began I, with desire of being certain
Of that Faith which o’ercometh every error,

“Came any one by his own merit hence,
Or by another’s, who was blessed thereafter?”

Boring. SKIPPED.

Track two.

A door closes.

Track three.

Four notes. Over and over again. Beethoven’s fifth symphony. Boring. There are other notes, you see, than those four. Dum dum dum DUM! Dumb dumb dumb dumb; SKIPPED.

Track four.

A door closes.

Track five.

A door closes.

Track six.

When the exasperated soul abandons
The body whence it rent itself away,
Minos consigns it to the seventh abyss.

It falls into the forest, and no part
Is chosen for it; but where Fortune hurls it,
There like a grain of spelt it germinates.

It springs a sapling, and a forest tree;
The Harpies, feeding then upon its leaves,
Do pain create, and for the pain an outlet.

Like others for our spoils shall we return;
But not that any one may them revest,
For ’tis not just to have what one casts off.

Track seven.

Freedent Gum won’t stick to most dental work.

Track eight.

Of a new pain behoves me to make verses
And give material to the twentieth canto
Of the first song, which is of the submerged.

Boring. You are boring me.

Track nine.

So kiss a little longer
Hug a little longer
Stay close a little longer
Longer with Big Red.

I remember. A door closes.

Third Movement (Minuet and Trio)

Eyes. Blue-grey. Hair. Dark-brown. Kiss. Too-wet. Laughs. Too-dry. Smile. Wide-gapped.

Gone for-good.

Drink too-much. Strip to-none. Climb too-high. Jump too-far. Land on-head.

Fourth Movement (Rondo)

So laugh a little longer
Make it last a little longer
Give your breath long lasting freshness-
With Big Red!

____________________________________
Here’s Nichole’s entry for this week. It pairs nicely with last week’s entry, and maybe they’ll all come together like in Heroes and save the cheerleader!

Okay, I wasn’t intentionally trying to direct this piece, but for some reason it decided at last minute it wanted to be a part of last weeks challenge. Oh well. And for those of you who aren’t familiar with Norse mythology, here’s a little bit on the ones I mentioned.

Loki is the god of mischief. He is often portrayed as an evil god or at the very least, one that has a screwed up moral compass. He is often the nemeses of Thor and Odin.

Odin is the Norse equivalent of Zeus. He’s the head of the pantheon and father to Thor among others. Odin is the god of War, Death, Poetry and Wisdom.

Muninn is one of the two ravens that belong to Odin. Muninn is memory and the other, Huginn, is thought. These two travel the world everyday and return to Odin every night to sit on his shoulder and tell him what they saw and heard.

Thor is the god of Thunder and while that does not sound particularly powerful, Thor is one of the most powerful gods in the Norse pantheon. He is also a well liked god because unlike Odin he does not require human sacrifice. Thor is known as a protector from evil for both human and gods.

And now to the response…

I found out that hard way that shutting your eyes is not an effective way to hide. But it was my only defense. It worked for five year olds, it could work for me…right? My head ached in tune with my heart. Thump, thump, thump. Wait a minute. What the.

The wind picks up a bit shivering around my dangly bits, and slaps a small cord against my arm. A small cord that leads to a iPod strapped high up on, if I may say so myself, a well muscled bicep. My headache intensified as I concentrated on the thumping which strangely enough was not that of my heart as I first assumed, but that of what sounded like a door. A door that was stuck in a permanent loop of slamming shut and then open and then shut again.

Flashing light caught my attention and I looked up to watch two patrol cars screeching to a painful, jolting halt. Three cops pushed through a Japanese couple who were tacking frantic pictures in my direction and a teenager with an obscenely color blinding combination of clothing chomping on a rather large wad of gum. I watched them stomp closer calmly. Why was I calm? Why shouldn’t I be? It’s not like I could successfully run away and hide. I was naked. Completely and utterly bare. And I had no reason to feel guilty. I didn’t even know where the hell I was, not to mention all the other minor things in life. Such as a name, a history, I.D., etc.

(Skip rest of scene - to police station - finish later)

The station on 43rd was as cold and barren as one would expect. It was also raucous which completely eclipsed the slightly guilty feeling creeping up in my throat. Did I do anything bad recently? Not anything I knew about, but hell, feeling guilty must be what normal people felt when they entered a police station and I wasn’t going to be any different than anyone else. (At least I thought normal people felt such emotion upon entering a station, but as things stood I really had no idea.)

Officer McAllister, a petite woman with flint grey eyes gave me a look that made my testicles pull up underneath my scratchy emergency blanket. I am pathetic. I stood up straighter towering over her quite unintentionally. And then stepped back as her look became every scarier. This woman probably ate alligators live…for breakfast. Breakfast of champions.

The remaining two officers (out of the three sent to arrest me), including the alligator lady, directed me towards a room on the far end of the station. We had to step over two fallen chairs (victims in a war involving a man waving a stapler in a most threatening fashion) and detour around a lady that had managed to stick an entire wad of dripping toilet paper to her forehead. It slid slowly towards her right temple. I don’t think a naked man is the police’s biggest concern at the moment. And to be fair. I’m no longer naked. I have a toga…made out of a scratchy wool blanket, but still a toga.

Two men in cheap black suits swung from suspended fluorescent lights. I craned my head around Officer Nielsen (a hulking example of broad muscles and blonde hair) to watch a complicated release maneuver that failed and landed the man directly into a small trash can, butt first. My fascination with the stuck man faded though when I was shoved directly into the small room and shut the door.

Okay.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” A tired voice second my unspoken thought of ‘what the hell.’

A man giggled. “Nope.”

I gave a brief look to the nondescript man in a colorful tie standing in the corner. He was giving me an unsettling grin so wide that I could see all four of his canines. Just a bit creepy. I quickly shifted attention to the other man in the room. Tired brown eyes watched me before switching to the creep.

“He’s going to help me stop Ragnarök?”

Hold up…what? What does that mean?

The creepy dude cackled and the hair on my arms stood up and did the hula. No I’m serious. They did.

“Loki.” The man at the desk was angry. I was confused. And concerned. And a tiny bit cold. Hey! I’m half naked here.

The iPod sudden switched to a monotone voice. “There is no greater sorrow/Than to be mindful of the happy time/In misery.”

“What the hell?” I scrabbled at my makeshift toga unintentionally flashing the creepy man in my haste to reach the long forgotten iPod (that had still been opening and shutting a door continuously). I twisted my arm about and looked the display safe in it’s clear plastic case. It read.

Dante’s Inferno. Longfellow Translation. Inferno (V, 121).

I glanced at Loki who had suddenly become solemn. He directed his next phrase to the tired man. “He’s one of Odin’s, Muninn.”

The other man sighed. “An amnesiac man. Ironic.”

An amnesiac man wakes up naked standing in the middle of Times Square at rush hour. He doesn’t know how he got there, and his only clue is an iPod strapped to his arm in a runners band. It contains the audiobook of Dante’s Inferno, a jingle for Wrigley’s, every work done by Beethoven, and the sound of a door shutting on an infinite loop.

Next week’s theme is as follows:

Use a character (or characters) from a preexisting work of fiction in next week’s entry.

Entries can be submitted in any medium. The end-date for submissions is Thursday July 17. Be sure to notify me at MSTrox@gmail.com!

I’m learning to bake through the power of Internet bloggery.  The gist is, every Tuesday I will post about a different baked good from Baking:  From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan.  This is all part of the wonderful Tuesdays With Dorie blogroll.  You’ll see my disasters and far-less-frequent triumphs at the oven.

I started out by picking up a few kitchen items I didn’t own–namely a food processor and a pie plate.  My parents have all of this stuff, but I’m imagining someday I’ll be gainfully employed, out of the house, and in need my own versions.  As that annoying guy from Rage Against the Machine says, “What better place than here?  What better time than now?”  I get most of my baking advice from Rage Against the Machine, by the way.  With a pocket full of shells.

I didn’t see any 9″ pie plates at Target (which was the extent of my lazy shopping), but a 9.5″ pie plate would fit the bill just fine, right?  RIGHT?

I had some free time while my girlfriend was driving into town, so I made the crust on Thursday evening.  Pretty simple ingredients–vegetable shortening, butter, flour, sugar, salt, water.  Food process the beast, wrap it, and stick it in the refrigerator.  Easy peasy.  I was given a little boost in confidence when my dough actually came out looking like dough.  Is this baking?  Baking is easy.  All of those Keebler elves need to stop their bitching, because they are living the life of kings!

After refrigerating the dough during a dinner date, I came back and rolled it.  The recipe had a suggestion of freezing the dough into the pie plate, and that appealed to me.  That way all I’d have to do was fill the crust and bake.  Simple stuff.

Here’s where my stupid, oversized pie plate came into play.  Apparently 0.5″ is a lot of room when it comes to pies, you see.  I was supposed to have a fair amount of overhang with my crust, but my crust barely came up to the top of the plate.  I tried to make up for it by squeezing the crust a little thinner, but how thin is too thin?  Something told me that having a nearly translucent layer of pie crust holding a pound of sugary-sweet blueberry goo wouldn’t exactly work out.  Furthermore, the second half of the dough (the top of the pie) probably wasn’t big enough to drape atop the pie.

All the same, I didn’t have the time or ingredients to make another crust, so it would have to do.  I froze my crust and went on to do weekend things with weekend people, fancy-free of all the pie woes that would later befall me.

Flash forward to Monday evening, where I was free to pie the pie that must be pied.  I had bought a 2-quart container of blueberries at Costco earlier, so I had enough berries to fulfill the recipe and gorge myself while I waited the hour for the pie to finish baking.

I mixed the ingredients together (as Dorie says, “gently stir”), but my pie filling didn’t look too much like pie filling.  It looked like salt and sugar piled below a bunch of berries.  It didn’t come together until I started smashing a few berries.  “Gently stir” must have a wide variety of interpretations, because you’re going to want to mush some of your berries to get a decent filling.

I filled my frozen pie crust with unflavored breadcrumbs and the sugarberry mix.  I placed the frozen top atop my pie.  It just about fit over the whole thing, which I took as a small victory.  With some fork-smashing, I managed to seal the top of the pie (although the “crust” looked pretty dismal).  As a result of having to finagle the crust, the pie wasn’t necessarily the prettiest thing in the world.  Thankfully, my website had the word “ugly” in the title twice.  Paydirt.

OH CRUD.  Twenty minutes into the hour of baking, my crust was brown and soon-to-burn.  Too thin.  Way to go, Mike Spoodles.  Way to make a pie. I moved the pie up to a higher rack in the oven, and I turned the heat down to the “second thirty-minutes’” temperature early.  I tented some tinfoil loosely over the pie, as Dorie recommended.  I had no idea what this would do, but I was flying on my feet.  I had to use all the instincts I had honed through twenty-three years of microwaving everything I’d ever eaten.  Oh dear.

I finally swallowed my pride and went to my mother for help, who told me to put the pie back on the bottom (where it is less likely to brown, apparently), and to stop running around screaming like a little ninny.  Apparently pie is pie, and pie is good.  One of life’s lessons.

I crumbled off a lot of the offending crust.

The final product?  Ugly, of course.  The taste?  My mom says, “Mmmm!  This is good.”  She specifically liked the crust.  I liked it just fine, too.  The fact that it came out tasting like an actual dessert damn near brought a tear to my eye.  My dad and brother did not eat it, but they probably would have if I had replaced the blueberries with ground beef.

A bit of a madcap first week of Tuesdays With Dorie for me, but I can only imagine that things will get smoother from here (they won’t).

So, things I bought:

Black and Decker PowerPro II Food Processor ($40)
Pyrex 9.5″ Pie Plate (”Grip-rite”) (approx. $10)

Things I learned:

Use proper-sized dishes, or adjust recipe accordingly
How to make a pie crust
How to use a food processor
How to make a dang pie
Pie crust tastes good before you bake it

Here is nutritional information for 1/10th of the pie (which is less than Dorie’s recommended 6-8 servings, but COME ON LOOK AT THOSE CALORIES.  Haha.

To enter, post your entry on your blog. Then, e-mail me at MSTrox@gmail.com with a link to your entry. I will then make a round-up post sharing your art on my website, as well as the requisite linkage.

This week’s theme?

My attempts at reason and quiet diplomacy fell on deaf ears as they began to wrap themselves in toilet paper from head to foot and chant “We want women.” I retreated to the relative quiet of my room and read the writing of a monk who lived alone on a mountaintop for thirty-seven years in search of a deeper understanding of the world. His main conclusion, when he came down, was that you can see very far on top of a mountain unless it is cloudy. Imprisoned for his radical ideas, he died several years later in jail. The only writing from this time period that survived is the line: “There are no clouds in a prison.”

-From The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper:  My Life, My Tapes (as heard by Scott Frost)

Inspiration is a funny thing.  This week it was my turn to pick a theme, and I thought this one was pretty neat.  I sat here and stewed over the prompt, and then I began writing.  I guess what I’m saying is, don’t judge me for coming up with a piece that is all about poop jokes, and which has no tangible ties to the actual prompt.  The piece did spring from the prompt (in some twisted way), but that’s about where it stops.

This is a dialogue, which I may use in the future and may not.  Either way, it’s plain to see that I need to work on the unnatural nature of my dialogue.

Untitled Dialogue

(Phone)

A: How’s summer camp?

B: Stephanie just came into my cabin to talk to me, except I was in the bathroom pooping. It was…

A: Bizarre.

B: …bizarre. It was bizarre. It was bizarre.

A: I know just what you mean. The other day my boss pissed at the urinal next to mine. Started talking about American Idol.

B: Weird.

A: I know. I don’t even watch American Idol, but I had to play along. He’s my boss.

B: Uh huh.

A: Plus, things would have gotten weird if I’d stopped him.

B: He was talking to you while you were urinating.

A: Oh.

B: Weird, right?

A: Yeah. Time and a place, man. Time and a place.

B: Uh huh.

A: What did Stephanie talk to you about?

B: I told her there were alligators in the shower house.

A: That doesn’t make sense.

B: It does not. There were not alligators in the shower house. Just a plumbing problem.

A: Yep.

B: In case you were wondering, alligators do not live at this camp.

A: Yeah, no. I am aware of the alligator situation in central Pennsylvania and it is quite dire.

B: Really.

A: Did it strike you at all to make as many loud farts as possible? You know. End the conversation in one foul swoop.

B: I think you mean ‘fell swoop.

A: No, it would most decidedly be foul.

B: Well I didn’t. I felt self-conscious and stopped.

A: Oh. I would poop extra hard.

FIN

_____________________________________________

Welcome to our newest member, Conor Schaefer, who gives us his first submission!  The piece is called “A Joining,” and it falls in the Short Fiction category.  If you’re looking for a piece inspired by the prompt that doesn’t involve a lot of poop and pee, you’ll be well-met to click this link and read Conor’s fantastic entry.  Here is a brief excerpt, although there is so much more at his site.

Otto Gottlieb is a rusty old lamppost of a man. A lit cigarette in the rain. The ash collects like fallen snow in the crevices of his worn leather jacket and the rain sullies it. He stands articulated on a square in a nonexistent European town, waiting for a bus already come and gone.

He doesn’t want to answer his door. Without peering out the window, he knows the jaguars are walking about on two feet again. In the den, a clay sculpture of a Sphinx is pushed off the mantel and dashes itself against the stone beneath. Its head breaks off, rather than just the nose. Yet again, the universe fails to be as poetic as it could, if it cared.

_________________________________________

Here is my friend Nichole’s piece. She doesn’t have a blog of her own, and I am reposting this with her permission. She takes the most straightforward extension of the theme, and plans to develop this further. Pretty darn good, huh?

My attempts at reason and quiet diplomacy fell on deaf ears as they began to wrap themselves in toilet paper from head to foot and chant “We want women.” I retreated to the relative quiet of my room and read the writing of a monk who lived alone on a mountaintop for thirty-seven years in search of a deeper understanding of the world. His main conclusion, when he came down, was that you can see very far on top of a mountain unless it is cloudy. Imprisoned for his radical ideas, he died several years later in jail. The only writing from this time period that survived is the line: “There are no clouds in a prison.”

The relative quiet became real quiet as a sudden hush made the skin beneath my fingernails crawl. I looked up from my dog eared college textbook to see a pudgy face pressed against my glass door, lips bloated obscenely against the glass. And was that a wiggling tongue? Well it at least explained my co-workers behavior in the lunch room, and the evidence room, and the records room. Contrary to popular belief FBI agents did not spend their work day hanging from fluorescent lights or chanting about their desire for women. Especially, Alice Cooper. She was six months pregnant with her second child by the same man. Somehow I doubted she wanted women.

The grotesque face pulled away from the glass to show a fairly nondescript man. Shit brown hair, coal eyes, and a green polka dot tie decorated the man, who wasn’t really a man. Okay, so not as nondescript as I first thought, but to be fair his clothing choice was the only thing making him stand out at all. I looked wearily at the textbook before closing it with a loud WHACK. I waved him in and avoided watching him move. He looked human, but didn’t move like one. It always made me a little queasy watching muscles and bones move where there shouldn’t have been either.

One gum covered sole rubbed goo onto my desk and I gave it and it’s owner a look. A chuckle that echoed with hundreds of voices was all I got for my effort. The shoe remained.

“What do you want? And my co-workers?”

Loki shrugged. “They’re enjoying themselves. And we want the usual my nephew.” He smiled widely showing dagger like teeth. “We want you to stop Ragnarök.”

Well it wasn’t every day the god of Mischief asked you to save his life. This definitely topped my captain growing donkey ears during a meeting with NSA.

Next week’s theme is from Nichole.

An amnesiac man wakes up naked standing in the middle of Times Square at rush hour. He doesn’t know how he got there, and his only clue is an iPod strapped to his arm in a runners band. It contains the audiobook of Dante’s Inferno, a jingle for Wrigley’s, every work done by Beethoven, and the sound of a door shutting on an infinite loop.

Sounds pretty straightforward to me.

Entries can be submitted in any medium. The end-date for submissions is Thursday July 10. Be sure to notify me at MSTrox@gmail.com!

I recently won a contest at Tuesdays with Dorie, giving me a free baking cookbook (and a seat among the hallowed TWD blogroll). TWD is a baking event. Every week, a recipe is picked from the pages of Baking:  From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Then, every blogger and their mother bakes their own version of that recipe.

I’ve not done a particularly good job of baking in the past. Most of my baking is f’aking, and then there’s some that just kind of falls apart (Chocolate Cherry Dr. Pepper Cupcakes, Amazing Black Bean Brownies).

Until I receive the book in the mail and get to babble endlessly about my failures as a baker and as a human being, here’s a mega-update about my adventures in chocolatey things.

I’m a…hungry girl?  That can’t be right!

In my neverending quest to eat delicious treats that somehow don’t bust my gutline, I stumbled across a newsletter called Hungry Girl. Is it run by a hungry girl? Is it a site for hungry girls? Either way, I’m emasculated by e-mail messages five days a week.

Now that we can put aside all of that macho posturing, I’ll inform you that Hungry Girl is the real shizz. I’ve been perusing years and years worth of bizarre recipes and bookmarking almost every page. The recipes are fast and easy; frequently they are made with junk you have laying around.

My first completed recipe was Yum Yum Brownie Muffins (click that link for the recipe). It’s pretty simple–a box of dry cake mix and a can of 100% pumpkin. I used Pillsbury Reduced-Sugar Devil’s Food Cake Mix, which is sweetened with a mix of sugar and Splenda. In the end, the muffins were each 153 calories. That, my friends, is a drop in the bucket. The muffin bucket.

The muffins were dense, and fudgy. Nothing in the flavor indicated that they were “diet muffins.” They were subdued enough to eat as a breakfast treat, but substantial and chocolatey enough to frost in cupcake form.

Reactions weren’t glowing, but generally positive. My mom and sister scarfed them down, and coworkers enjoyed them too.  For a quick-fix recipe, that’s really all you can ask for!

More photos of Hungry Girl’s “Yum Yum Brownie Muffins.”

Mano Amano

You may remember that I blogged about $21 of free Amano chocolate that I received.  I asked for suggestions as to what I should do with the bars, and I received some interesting ones.  While I considered Conor’s suggestion of intravenously feeding myself, I ended up following Joli’s advice and letting the shizzle dissolve in my mouth.  It’s about as close as I’ll ever get to snooty “chocolate tasting” given my level of patience.

Amano creates chocolate in three forms–Madagascar, Ocumare, and Cuyagua.  All three bars have 70% cacao content.  Texturally, these chocolates were heads above “similar” items from both the mass-market brands and the more widespread organic options.  When it comes to flavor–eh.  Some were better, some were worse.  The Madagascar was revelatory.  Amano says it “includes hints of citrus and berry,” and I’ll be damned if my untrained palate actually found them!  This is by far the best dark chocolate I’ve ever eaten.  The Ocumare was pretty good.  Although the tasting notes mention “hints of plums and other red fruit,” this one tasted (to me) pretty close to a generic dark chocolate bar.  Cuyagua (including “notes of spice”) was my least favorite of the three.  The spice seemed to be nonexistant.  The chocolate seemed somehow blander than the other products.

Are any of these products worth $7 for a bar?  I don’t think so.  I can appreciate the amount of work and care that went into each of these bars, but when you can get a (larger) bar for $2.50 in the organic section of your supermarket it seems like an awful waste to pay triple that for similar quality.

More Free Chocolate Crapola

I received a free sample of Betty Crocker Warm Delight Minis:  Molten Chocolate Cake.  It’s the Easy Mac of cakes!  Just add water, stir, microwave, and you have fresh, steamy cake.

The pack comes with a small packet of cake mix, a condom wrapper filled with fudge sauce, and a small plastic bowl.  Prep was fairly easy, requiring only two minutes of work.  The end result wasn’t bad.  It was cake-mixy and clearly not baked from scratch, but the fact that it was fresh from the “oven” improves the little cake’s value tenfold.

At 150 calories, it’s a nice (albeit expensive) calorie-cheap dessert.  It has trans fats, with partially hydrogenated oils in both the cake mix and the fudge.  Despite its caloric value (which is more a measure of its diminuative size and not its “healthiness”), this is not for the dieter.

More photos of Betty Crocker Warm Delight Minis:  Molten Chocolate Cake

In the near future, you’ll be seeing a lot more failed baking (and, presumably, a little bit of success)

And…well, maybe everything I touch doesn’t turn to gold. I have a feeling there will be a lot of baked goods that turn to black before this strange, mystical journey is over.