O for Oblivion

        I love the Foodnetwork.  It has empowered me to step into the kitchen and loose the fear.  I just made up something that, if I may say so myself, is the best damn thing i have ever made in the kitchen.  I felt like eating something new...believe it or not, I'm tired of eating the same thing every week.  Well, we went to Sam's yesterday and bought  a big bulk of mixed greens and another of strawberries.  The two things just clicked and I made a weird but tasty salad and dressing.  I got a bowl and mixed in the greens, some strawberries and some cherry tomatos.  Then I crumbled some fetta cheese on top.  For the dressing I got the juice of two limes (they were kind of small), diced and pasted a clove of garlic (just add salt and crush it with the back of the blade of your knife), a tablespoon of strawberry marmalade, salt, pepper, a dash of mustard, some dried oregano, and extra virgin olive oil.  I mixed dressing and salad and...Yummo! (I watch too much 30 Minute Meals...C'm on, Rachel Ray is hot >:P) The garlic and the strawberry jam really combined well, and then the oregano just sealed the deal.  It was pretty good.  If you try let me know how you liked it. Then I halved and sprinkled some extra virgin olive oil on some kaiser buns, then toasted them,  and made myself a pepper jack cheese burger.  I don't know what to call my new salad hehe...maybe something with Greek since the cheese and the oregano are used in Greek food.   I'm stuffed...and sleepy.   Well, now if I move back to UTA I won't be stuck eating Maruchan soups and tuna sandwiches...yuck. 
       I have class in like two hours and I haven't finished my chapter on WWII.  Pretty intersting that guy Hitler.  Presumably his grandfather was a Jew, making him a Jew...talk about loathing one's self.  Also, did you know that his mother wanted to abort him and that he was denied at the Vienna School or Art?  He painted really nice that Hitler.  If only one of the latter two would have been accomplished, though I'd rather go for the Art than the abortion, we probably wouldn't have the ghost that is WWII hanging over our shoulders.

Does anybody know what happened to the creativewriter community?

What's going on with the Simpsons?  Is the creative fuel just evaporating away?  They are now using cheap humor that isn't even worth it.  All the sharp, intelligent, post-modern humor has gone bad.  They better start bucking up.  If the series are getting bad...imagine how the movie will be?  This isn't looking good.

Two semesters ago I did this inventive model for my Intro. to Textual Analysis class.  It involves Way to Rainy Mountain's method of including myth, history, and personal anecdotes and interlacing them in one text.  The author would do once chapter on Native American myth, then follow that chapter with history, and then with a chapter on personal expiriences.  I did mine on Mexican legend and folkore...well the last part because it is a three part model.   In the power pt. presentation I used songs...but LJ won't let me use embeded players.  Well, all comments are appreciated.  Before I forget, "Cielo Rojo" is a ranchera song written by Juan Zaisar; I just translated.  Here it goes:

 

Ok, I think I have the right to brag.  I worked my ass off this semester and I harvested what i sowed.  I got a freakin 4.0 man!  My first 4.0 in college.  I'm so proud of mysell ;]  When I decided to take five classes this semester, I pictured myself cracking under stress and dropping one like last semester...but I didn't.  I stuck to my guns and got all A's.  yeaaaaaaaaaaay!  Hope this means more scholarships hehe :P

Ok, so The DaVinci Code comes out tommorow, and as a Catholic I tell you: Go and do whatever the hell you want.  I just don't understand the tactics of the Church.  The story, as the novel says, is FICTION.  Why are we getting all worked up over FICTION?  The only thing the Vatican is doing by asking the ban of the movie is to make publicity for it and to make people believe that there is something actually going on.  Now, if one is a true believer, I doubt a movie can shake the foundations of your personal beliefs.  To tell you the truth, I want to go see the movie.  I like the mystery and the suspense that it promises.  It could be about discovering that the Buda wasn't a sacred person, or that Wicca is a bunch of crap...I don't care.  I like suspense.  I know what I believe and what I don't, and I doubt that FICTION will sway me.  Now, if you are a Christian, then go ahead and see the movie, take note of what you don't like about it, go to your Bible and do some research to counterattack what you think the movie misses, then when they try and attack you by saying that Christ didn't die on the cross, use what you saw in the movie with what you researched in the Bible and bam!  you will be a well prepared Christian that can defend his or her beliefs with textual data and the fervor of faith.  Remember...its FICTION.  Now, if it was a documentary about the alleged marraige of Jesus with Mary M. then there I would tell you to be cautious about watching it...but it's fiction...so do whatever you want.  See it or don't go see it.  It's up to you. 

Stupid drama television...it manipulated my feelings today.  I watched Grey's Anatomy's Season Finally, first time I watch Grey's Anatomy.  Stupid show lured me into investing two hours of my life...and then repayed me with sappy, unfair, tv drama crap.  I'm not saying it wasn't good; it's just that I don't like my feelings being messed with by TV.  Ok, so you invest your interest in this chick who wants to get a heart for a patient.  Ok, so she does something unethical to get him a heart.  She does.  He then asks her to marry him.  The doctors have prom at the hospital for a teenage girl who's dying of ovarian cancer, and then...that bastard with the new heart dies of a blood clot.  What an idiot.  So, the hot chick quits because she confesses.  And then I'm left to ponder about my feelings, how do I feel about the death and all.  TV shouldn't make you think like that.  TV is for you to get scared by your local news or to just dump your brain out while watching The Simpsons.  Oh, and then Jimmy Kimmel plays with my emotions too...

      I should have seen it coming.  It was the Season Finale of Grey's Anatomy and Jimmy Kimmel Live comes out in ABC aswell.  Well, this bastard Kimmel has a show about wild animals and then they bring out this hugue monster of a rattle snake.  Blah, Blah, Blah...he gets bitten and taken to the hospital.  I thought, "I just witnessed such an awesome moment.  I can't believe I saw a man getting bit by a snake on TV."  Then I thought, "Isn't this already recorded earlier?"  It really hit me when Jimmy asked Guillermo to take his pants off and help him put on his hospital robe.  Bastard. 

This past Friday I went to a Chinese buffet with my friends. I had been craving Chinese, since I was reading Memoirs of a Geisha. The more I think about, the more I come to realize how stereotypical I can be. First of all, why was I craving Chinese food when the book was set in Japan? Well, I guess it was just the Oriental exoticness that we Westerners are unable to discern. Japanese is not Chinese; it’s that simple. Well, anyways, we went.
The sky was very dark. I could see that rain was on its way…late as usual. It was supposed to rain the day before, according to the meteorologists. Well, we entered and got seated. It smelled as my cravings had told me it would. I got up and rummaged through the four large islands that contained all kinds of food. My first target was the sesame chicken, which I found at the edge, next to the squid and the crab, and the tiny mushrooms. I got some on my white plate, then I looked for my next target: lo main (is this how you spell it?). I found it…but then what? I looked around and found the metal steamers containing the dumplings, but I’m not that brave. I did find a little bread ball covered in sesame seeds; I took it. Then I went to this island where I found all kinds of delicious Western blasphemies such ass potato skins stuffed with macaroni and cheese, pizza, bread sticks, and even tamales for God’s sake!
“Don’t you want tamales?” Cristina asked me.
“If I want tamales, I’ll just go home.” I told her sarcastically. I mean, it was absurd to pay for tamales when I really wanted Chinese food. Besides, I can eat tamales during Thanksgiving, Christmas, or on whatever occasion the moon aligns with the tip of the pyramid in Teotihuacán and my mother and aunts decide they have nothing else to do but to cook tamales. I still looked for something to fill my plate with, so I opted to go for French fries and onion rings: delicacies only found in Asian restaurants.
We went back to our seats and started to eat. I found the hot sauce and sprinkled all my food with it. We were about to dig in, when we noticed that our neighbors were eating with chopsticks. “I want some chopsticks,” we said. I offered to ask, but the waitress was going left to right seating people…and I really, really didn’t want to bother her. My friends started eating, but I waited a little. I was looking for the right opportunity to ask for chopsticks. I didn’t want to start eating with a fork and then seem capricious and ask for chopsticks, when obviously I was doing pretty well with the fork. So, I resigned my desire for chopsticks and dug in. I went for the sesame chicken, but I soon came to realize that my cravings were not really fueled by hunger, but by the novel. I wanted to paint my life according to what I had read in the novel, but still, if that was so, what the hell was I doing in a Chinese restaurant? Wasn’t I supposed to be eating sushi in front of a performing chef? Well, first of all, I don’t eat fish. The smell of the sea makes me queasy. I used to eat fish and shrimp when I was a child, but somehow I have come to, not hate them, but not like them. The only privileged fish that can have the honor of being grinded by teeth are the canned tuna. Well, going back to the chicken, it was too soft and had the funny taste of dark meat. I mostly prefer the white breast meat. I sighed and wrapped some lo main around the fork. I guess it was just the image in the movie of people eating chopstick that triggered my cravings for Chinese.
As I looked at our plates, I notice something that was hilarious and extremely horrifying at the same time. I saw plates that contained sesame chicken and noodles side by side with French fries, onion rings…pizza. I thought that we were contributors to the murder of a culture. I felt as if I was taking fine Chinese silk and dyeing it with cheap ketchup. I told my friends, but they just giggled and went on to eating.
I finally gathered the strength to ask the waitress for three pairs of chopsticks; Jeanette doesn’t know how to use them. I took my chopsticks, placed them at the table, and stood up to gather more food. I took a nice warm plate and placed some more sesame chicken, some chicken with sweet and sour sauce, some rice noodles, I even had the valor to take a sweet dumpling. It looked like a little translucent cocoon, with a pudding like paste in the middle. Oh, and of course, I crowned the plate with onion rings. I was tempted to get some mushrooms, but I had already had a bad experience with them at the Happy New Years restaurant, the one next to Ci Ci’s Pizza. Oh, I forgot to mention the fried green beans; I love fried green beans. I sat down and perfectly split the joint wooden chopsticks in half. I began to eat. The food, I don’t know why, tasted more delicious with scent of the wooden chopsticks. Blanca split the chopsticks unevenly, and decided not to eat with them. The waitress came to pick up our used plates and asked me in her soft, accented voice, “Do you not need your fork sir?” I thought about it. “No thank you.” I decided to be respectful with the chopsticks, even though I know nobody would notice. I firmly grabbed the chunks of chicken in between the sticks, careful not to drop any. I felt proud picking up the fried green beans and being so dexterous with the chopsticks, as if I was honoring the Chinese waitress with my so-called respect for her culture and food. I took the dumpling, and miraculously, I found it delicious.
I still felt guilty for the whole food and culture massacre…but was I to blame for my own guilt? After all, the owners did decide to sell pizza, and fries, and onion rings along side dumplings and squid. But, what are they to do in this battle field of capitalism? They have to offer something else, a variety. And I can understand why they might do such a thing; I have a father who dislikes Chinese food, and a mother who loves it. Whenever we can’t decide what to eat on the weekends, my mother and I sometimes put Chinese food on the table as a very plausible option…but then my father manipulatively says, “You can go if you want. I’ll just stay here.” Then, we scratch Chinese food out of the list. If we had a buffet like the one I went to in Arlington, maybe my dad would go eat Chinese food with us.
I sat there with my friends, thinking of what to get for dessert. I was looking at the huge prints of a mountain and of the Great Wall of China, lit underneath by fluorescent lighting. I saw the foggy green mountains, and I hoped to one day visit them. They looked so mysterious, as if they hid magic or fox fairies in their caves and their mist. “Are you getting fruit?” They asked me. I felt offended, “I did not come here to pay for fruit!” Really, I wasn’t offended. I was being an ass. Last summer, I wanted to go to this New Age café. So, I asked two of the friends present to go with me. When we got there, we noticed that a sign said ‘All Vegetarian Menu.’ “I ain’t payin’ for no vegetables!” One of my friends said. I and my other friend laughed so hard. I think she noticed that she sounded either ghetto, cheap or piggish, or all three combined. So when I said “I did not come here to pay for fruit!” I brought back a blush and a memory to the face of my friend. We laughed out loud. So, later I asked my friends what places in the world they would like to visit. One said China, or Italy. I said Paris, somewhere in Italy, and Japan. I just think Japan is so hip, but still foreign enough to catch my interest. Then, my friend Blanca went to get some shrimp, and a conversation arose. It was about how sushi sounded like coochi. We decided to play a joke on Blanca, ask her if she liked sushi, and then Cristina would say, “no she likes…” You get the rest.
Well, we finished eating and went to the front to pay. In the front, they had this ornate fountain that had real fish swimming at the bottom. It seemed like this tiny Asian village…it was beautiful. I stood next to the alabaster Buddha and paid for Jeanette and me. I wanted to rub his belly; he was so jolly, as if he didn’t care that he was at a dangerous obesity level. By the register, I noticed something that was completely out of place: a tiny crimson box containing an icon of St. Teresa, I believe it was St. Teresa. What was a Catholic saint doing among Buddha and dragons? I wanted to ask the cashier if she was Catholic, but I didn’t have the nerve. Huh, it gets me thinking.
Well, it had started to rain. We headed home, Jeanette and me in her car, and Blanca and Cristy in Blanca’s car. We got stuck in traffic for almost forty-five minutes. Jeanette had to pee, so I felt obliged to make watery noises and to express my desire for a cold glass of water, full of ice and sweating with condensation. I had to stop when she kindly told me to ‘shut the fuck up.’ I finally got home. I went to see my beautiful goldfish. They are a pair of lion heads; one is gold and silver, and the other white with a red cap. I came to wonder, wasn’t the art of the goldfish originated in China? If it was, then I guess in a way I was nurturing a piece of their ancient culture. I take care of those fish like nothing else. I have spent over one hundred dollars in products and water treatments to keep them healthy and nurture their wens. I don’t know what it is about the Asian lands and customs that attract me. I even have alabaster dragons in the living room. Well, that day I was so full with sesame chicken, I didn’t eat dinner. I ended my day by finishing watching “Memoirs of a Geisha.” Chinese food, movie about Japanese girl…perfect end for an exotic day in Texas.

I saw this documentary on Chernobyl and it inspired this.  I hope you like; if not, that's fine.  So, here it goes:
             
                                                                                                <lj-cut>Chernobyl


     The placid lake, so tranquil and solemn, hides a horror that seeps through cracks. Beyond the still waters and the blades of grass lies a box: a concrete sarcophagus, supposed to subdue her. None one can subdue her. Once a queen, now a fiend, she lurks in the shadows, in the unseen. Her cloak is intangibility itself. Her crown long tarnished, lies broken, beyond the placid lagoon. Like an invisible fog, she seeps through the cracks of her sepulcher, taking with her the horrors that lie inside. She then solidifies into the monster she has become. She passes through the pale malachite grass, and even stoops down too look at the wormwood a while. As a queen, she promised to bring wealth to her children. With her iron wings, she would bring winds of promise. But iron corrupts under heat and rain. Such a sadistic entity she is now. Her power expanded without boundaries. Her bitter spittle leaked into the waters. Her putrid breath tainted the air. Her corrupted hands planted evil in the earth. Her scared subjects, the ones who raised her to her throne, condemned her to a concrete box. They must have forgotten that evil was once in a box, but that did not stop it from spreading. From then on, she vowed revenge on the descendents of her subjects. Her curse, as bright as the full moon, shines down upon the land. Her evil spirit radiates from the broken tomb. Like infernal warmth, it reaches all around. She plants her cursed seed in the berries and in the grass, most horribly…in the womb. “I could not save you. Then, I shall destroy you.” 


     So this night she seeps out through the cracks. She drags her serpentine body on the grass. Her toxic scales destroy the green. Her trail is that of withered grass and flowers. She follows the lights; she is sure that life resides there. She looks behind at her broken fortress, under darkness of the sky, and wonders of the fortune she promised. Trough the tall grass she creeps, and behind the trees she hides. This humble structure she finds. Tiny and old, with a gentle light quivering inside, this appeals to her wrath. “Here lie my victims.” She drags herself with her own hands, clawing the earth and the grass. Her fingernails broken are stuffed with the earth she corrupted. She is safe in the shadows, observing through a dirty window. She grabs the rim of the window and peers into the lit room. A woman, with hair as bright as noon, lies on a bed. A little mound protrudes from her belly. She rubs it with such love and care. A man walks in, with warm milk and bread slathered with jam. Such delicious jam it is. Dark violet and luscious, like obsidian and amethyst combined, shines the jam made of blackberries. But corrupted the berries were, licked by her who spies outside the window. With warm spirits the lady takes her milk, bread, and jam. From this, her child will be nurtured while he forms inside. An old lady comes, and kisses her good night, rubs her belly, and turns off the light. The man with her lays, and embraced they succumb to the night. The moonlight enters the room, guiding the lamia queen inside. She sheds her scales and into vapor transforms. Through the cracks of the window she enters. Gently hovering on the bed, she makes her choice. She plunges into the woman through her nostrils, through her mouth, through her pores. In the woman’s throat she defecates, but lower is where her objective lies. She makes her way down to the womb, through the lanes of blood and the chambers of cells. She finds her prize, sucking his thumb. He is not safe in mommy’s sack. If it were only made out of lead, but it is made of thin flesh instead. She enters and embraces the babe. She caresses his head and forming toes. She kisses and adores him. She smothers him with kisses. She gives him a black kernel, puts it in his tiny hands, and tells him, “Keep this in your hand, and do not let go. I promise this will to God bring you closer, provided your parents take you to wash your primordial sin away. Pain and suffering is the map that takes you to God and Salvation. A hasty salvation I give to you. I promise.” And so she leaves her present and her promise and exists, back to her broken palace of broken promises. Though she has ruptured her promises before, this time, she has kept it true. As sure as the dawn is sublime and the night pure melancholy, her promise, this time, has sadly come true. </lj-cut>