Stories of yes-es, of frogs making messes, and poor unsuccessful and fat people's lives--

"Every man feels that his experience is unlike that of anybody else and therefore he should write it down -- he also finds that everybody else has thought and felt on some points precisely as he has done, and therefor he should write it down."

-Mark Twain, as recorded in the diary of Mrs. James T. Fields, 28 April 1876

I've been fiddling around with this blog for half a year now, and I am still struggling with what to make of it. As it is, it's not really a marketable product. Any particular topics that it covers -- cooking, life in the theatre, complaining about kids these days -- come with no organization, no regularity. And those topics are all buried within the minutiae of whatever happens to be on my mind at the moment. So then, it seems that this blog is a personal journal that just happens to be open to readers.

But if I am going to use it to talk about my life, as I live it, then what should that be? Until now, I've tried to avoid any references to my gender or class or race or any other such characteristic as much as possible. No name, just a pseudonym! Never a single picture of myself! I don't want to sell myself by my labels or my charming appearance -- and I'm quite charming, let me assure you. Somehow, I have this vague ideal of being wanted for my words and personality (in that order), not because I, myself, am a good product. But why should anyone be interested in this anonymous nobody, when there are so many others out there who are so much more openly personable, so much more enviably cooler?

And then I remember why I'm on the internet in the first place.

I came around to the internet through the geek door during the mid-1990s -- after the more hardcore nerds had been there for a while but before the mainstream took to it -- just as things like actual paper newsletters were dying out as the crowds moved to message boards, where information could be gained instantly (and for free) and socializing with the like-minded and like-interested could happen without having to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to a convention. That was back when you weren't told to use sensible caution when meeting someone you'd gotten to know over the internet, just in case they might not be who they said they were, but when you didn't put your name or location or any identifying characteristics out there, let alone offer to meet someone without being accompanied by anything less than an armed bodyguard, because the person on the other side of the screen was almost definitely a pedophile rapist axe-murdering serial killer.

Obviously, that did put a few dampers on getting to know your fellows online, and let's not pretend that we weren't as young and stupid then as the young and stupid are now. There was social drama, just as you'll have with any gathering of people, especially a gathering that persists over a long period of time, and so, so many bad decisions. But the drama wasn't an integral part of the experience and it was a relatively open society, and as you got to know people better over time, you'd start to trust that your friends weren't serial killers.

For me, it was Les Miserables, with the website for the musical then hosting a set of message boards for discussion about the show and its source, related user-run text-based roleplaying games, and general chatting. I fell in with some young bucks who were fans of the musical but particularly disposed toward the original novel (in all of its 1100-page Romantic glory), the historical/political context of the story, and the current state of society/politics in the world. Unlike those notorious AOL chat rooms, with their endless litanies of "a/s/l?" and "hi is anyone here?" and "dicks dicks dicks dicks ;D" -- which I'm able to describe because yeah, I was there, too -- this was a self-selected group, with built-in common ground, but a very diverse make-up. And basically, it was the great thing of having another social circle -- people I didn't go to school with or work with or have any obligation toward, but simply whose company I enjoyed.

Back to my laughably insufficient summary of internet cultural history, though, messageboards eventually fell out of favor with a number of the more socially-oriented internet subcultures, and by the early 2000s, the online journaling sites were the places to be. Does anyone else remember the spread? LiveJournal, DeadJournal, InsaneJournal, GreatestJournal, Inksome, Xanga, Diaryland... It was a perfect place for, again, gathering people of like interests, being able to easily share fan-generated writing and artwork with a large crowd, both personally known and not, and to have discussions about it and, by and by, discussions about other things that had absolutely not a thing to do with the original topic.

The range of about 2005-2010 was probably my favorite time on the internet. There was a thriving online journal subculture, accommodating special interest communities and text-based roleplaying games and general socializing, with people's styles ranging from short entries that were shot off in a minute (which one might now call Facebook status-esque) to more long-form, formal essaying. And what I loved best about it was how you might start tracking a person due to a story they wrote based on a Japanese cartoon or a pretty picture of a dragon that they drew or a delicious (and entertaining) recipe for cupcakes that they shared or a witty comment posted to the entry of a mutual acquaintance -- but then you might discover that you both loved the same obscure French medieval poet or they lived in a city that interested you or they were gay and you thought that maybe you might be, too, but you'd never known another person who was, not for sure, not for real, and oh god you weren't the only person in the world who felt the way that you did. And whatever the reason, it might end up that what was most important wasn't what they could make for you to enjoy or help instruct you what to do, but that you could hear about their spontaneous, uninformed reaction to the latest movie that was out or commiserate about having way too much homework or laugh in despair over the current horror story about their boss.

In other words, you could be friends. Or not even friends, but you might just have someone whose life you followed, without ever sharing an actual one-on-one conversation. And that could happen with anyone. From anywhere. And without the necessity, or the baggage or the burden, of a common workplace or shared acquaintance or anything like geographical proximity. You somehow just... found people.

Around 2010, there began to be a fracturing. LiveJournal, which had emerged as the dominant force in the online journaling scene, began going more mainstream, growing less friendly toward the rag-tag fandom geeks that had made it their home. A lot of people became uncomfortable there, and people splintered off to either the micro-blog service Plurk or the more old-school, but decidedly fandom-friendly, Dreamwidth. It was a gradual shift, though, as LJ's policies and services grew more hostile toward and less useful for many people who had used the site for years, so there wasn't any single exodus and, instead, there's now a diaspora of sorts across Plurk and Dreamwidth and tumblr for those who like to keep an internet-based social circle that might develop into friends whom you spend time with offline, but who are most definitely separate from those you initially met IRL and now spam your Facebook feed with e-mail forwards that you thought went out of style in the mid-1990s.

And all over the internet, as everything grows more mainstream, people are locking their doors. With good reason, to be sure. There are horror stories of employers digging up dirt on people and demanding passwords. And with all of the people who are online today, it does make sense not to put anything onto that network of tubes that would be terrible if it fell into the wrong hands. But it does sadden me a little, to try to browse through personal journals and micro-blogs, only to find "private" and "locked to friends" all over the place.

Then there's the opposite end of the spectrum, where you and/or your writing become a product that wants to reach as many people as possible. You want to get hits, be popular. And while I wouldn't have any objections to being internet-popular -- I mean, let's be real now -- thinking this over, I suppose that that isn't my goal.

I want to reach people because I think that people are interesting and have a lot to learn from each other -- not just because of any skills they have to offer, but just by virtue of them being other people. I want to have conversations with strangers who might eventually become friends. I want to maybe write something that someone reads and never talks to me about, or who never talks to me at all, but maybe it helped them, in some little way.

Yesterday, I attended a talk with writers David Henry Hwang and Ha Jin. It was pretty fabulous, to say the least, but I was most struck by something that was said during the final section, when the floor was opened up for questions. Someone asked the two if they felt that they were living the American Dream. Ha Jin, who is native to China and didn't come to the United States until he was nearly 30 years old, replied that he hadn't grown up steeped in that mythology and it wasn't something he could really identify or identify with. But he said that he had found something in the United States, and that was the freedom of an honest life. It was the freedom to live honestly as an individual, to say and do true things without fear. It might not be the American Dream, but it was something that he had found in America and that he treasured.

That struck me then, and it's still resonating within me now.

So that will be my goal. To live an honest life. And with that, I've found the purpose of this odd little thing that I'm using right now. I'll probably still save the charming pictures of myself for Facebook and friends-locked posts to my personal journal, and I don't plan on adding a pithy collection of labels to my "about me" page (hold me to that when I sell out someday), but if I am going to be true to my supposed principles, then what should be here should be an honest life.

Remember how the life we share is nothing but a song--

According to this story from The Scientist, Lonesome George, the last of a particular subspecies of giant Galapagos tortoise that inhabited Pinta Island in the Ecuadorian Galapagos, was found dead over this past weekend. His body was discovered by his keeper of 40 years. When Lonesome George was discovered back in 1972, his species was believed to be already extinct. That was not the case then, but it has become so now. By best estimates, Lonesome George was around 100 years old, which is relatively young for his subspecies, which is known to live to 200.

I just find it wonderfully humbling to try to imagine 200 tortoise years.

And the geek in me imagines a Doctor -- one with big ears and a leather jacket -- finding Lonesome George and having a quiet sit-down, the two of them watching the sunset glowing in the Pacific together. Then many years later, maybe putting on a bow tie and finding his reptilian companion. Just two lonesomes who were very, very young and very, very old.

In the meanwhile, I'm turning into fucking Betty Crocker. The problem with things requiring milk is that I don't drink milk as a beverage -- used to do two or three glasses per day until the lactose intolerance of my infancy came roaring back with a vengeance in my early twenties -- and recipes usually require a cup or less, leaving me scrambling to use up as much of the cow juice as I can through cooking before it goes bad. This goes doubly true for buttermilk, because while I'm sure there are people who drink straight buttermilk, I think that they're probably a much greater minority than regular cowmilk-drinkers.

Anyways, clearly, the solution to this was to make more buttermilk biscuits. I went with a more savory, less dessert-y recipe this time, and it came out pretty well, though I would use less salt next time. Also, the baking temperature/time was a bloody lie, as it called for 325 degrees for 15 minutes, and I had to pump it up to 375 degrees to even approach doneness in something like 30 minutes. It wins points for simplicity, though.

Combine 3 cups flour, 2 tablespoons baking powder and 2 teaspoons salt. (I'm going to try 1 teaspoon, if there's a next time.) Add a stick of butter, chilled and cubed, because we don't care about our fucking cardiovascular systems. Stick your hands in the bowl and mix that shit together. Toss in a cup of buttermilk, and stir it into a dough. Dump it onto a floured flat surface, and pound that sucker into a slab about a half-inch thick. Some people might use a rolling pin, but I prefer my fists. Be really classy and use the mouth of a drinking glass to cut circles approximately two inches in diameter -- you should get about 9 or 10, by the end of it. Stick them on a baking sheet or on the bottom tray of a broiler pan, that works, too. Bake those little motherfuckers until they're just turning golden brown.

Of course, they taste best straight out of the oven. This is an unfortunate fact if you're not cooking for anyone and, thus, have no reason to save a certain number for anyone else. I controlled myself after two, though, and my body also told me that that was really enough damage to inflict on it for the night.

Little does it suspect my plans for bacon, egg and biscuit sandwiches for breakfast.

Not tomorrow, though. I think that I'll try some of my leftover cooked quinoa to use as a breakfast cereal, breakfast cereal being another one of those things that I don't usually consume, due to lack of milk. (Not that that stopped me as a kid. To this day, I prefer shredded wheat dry.) Today, I decided to do a little actual quinoa research, by which I mean that I googled the Wikipedia page. I'd known that it was highly prized by the Incas but not that the invading Spanish not only disdained quinoa but suppressed its cultivation due to its place within the indigenous culture. Also, apparently, the United Nations has declared 2013 to be the International Year of Quinoa. So when you eat quinoa, not only are you getting a complete protein as well as significant dietary fiber, iron and calcium, but you're sticking it to The Man and supporting global harmony.

At this point, I'm starting to fade out for the night, which is pretty insane, given that it's usually a great success if I manage to get myself into bed before 2:00am. I'm trying out a discipline thing while my life circumstances allow for it -- i.e., while any challenge to get myself into bed before 2:00am isn't because I still have work to do or, hell, am still at work -- where I remember that yes, I actually do love mornings and can be much more productive during them. I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up this unprecedented two-day writing streak, but by golly, I'm going to try.

I think this means that one of the next things coming up is my annual Summer Resolutions (Third Edition, this year's subtitle being "Better Late Than Never.")

But for now, good night. This one goes out to Lonesome George. I hope that Nora Ephron is giving him a good ending. Although I'm imagining it right now, so it's not just a hope, after all, is it?

Boy, was I a fool in school for cutting gym--

Today, I cooked quinoa for the first time. I've known how to pronounce "quinoa" for a few years now, had eaten it a few times as part of dinners that my mother had prepared, but despite my adventurousness in consuming food, when it comes to cooking it, I'm much more of a novice. Let's just say that was only about a year ago that I hopped onto the brown rice train, after a long time of believing it to be an unforgivable sacrilege against the honest, respectable white rice that I got with every meal I'd eaten at an Asian restaurant since childhood. I overcame my prejudices, however, and brown rice has become my go-to, save for a few dishes where I feel that the specific type of rice is integral. (Sorry, my oyakodon will always be on white rice.)

But I digress.

This isn't about brown rice.

This is about quinoa.

I feel like this is a landmark of some sort. Because, I mean... seriously? Quinoa? This is, like, two steps away from veggie smoothies or something. Which I've been curious about for a while, now, actually. Even though it seems like such a... well, actor sort of thing.

Actor or not, it was the right thing to do. I had finally reached the end of my Tech Diet, which was comprised of two weeks of an utter lack of exercise, the second week of which also featured impressive amounts of stress eating, as well as impressively moderate drinking. And it was time for the switch back.

For those not part of the theatre scene, tech (short for "technical rehearsal") is what happens when a production moves from its rehearsal space to its actual performance space before it opens. This is when all of the technical elements are added in: lights, sound, costumes, scenery, projections, automation, whatever is applicable to that particular production. So you have all of these new things being added, as well as all of the people attached to them. And at the center of it all is the stage manager, maintaining communications between director and actors and designers and management and crew, helping to guide the actors through integrating all of these new elements, taking cues and instructions from designers so that the show can be run correctly, learning how to troubleshoot everything, coordinating press photos for marketing, keeping management in the loop, etc..

I've long accepted the Tech Diet as an inevitability. Two weeks of less than stellar fitness and diet, I feel, is a small price to pay for mental health.

(This, and the weeks of rehearsal preceding it, is also my excuse for not writing.)

At the end of it, however, I generally find myself in need of a detox and hopping back on the wagon, so to speak. I went to bed early last night, awoke to a delightful thunderstorm this morning, nommed some breakfast and started back into my exercise routine. And it had been brewing in my mind since the night before, after having made my purchase in the bulk food aisle at the local co-op a week ago, that today would be the day for the quinoa.

As for exactly how I cooked the quinoa, I modified a frittata recipe from the self.com's Drop 10 plan collection. Fitness meal plans tend to piss me off, because I despise having my food dictated to me. Also, I hate calorie counting with a passion. To say nothing of the fact that there is no way in hell that you'll catch me drinking a light beer. Of course, I'm afforded this privilege by being in good health and having been taught good eating habits by example as a kid. But on the first point, as much as I love new recipes, it always annoys me to have a shopping list dictated to me for anything more than a meal or two. My purchases are primarily guided by price, season/availability and versatility -- the latter coming into play in that I generally only have time to go to the grocery store and do my bulk cooking for the week once, at most. (Strangely and excitingly, this is not true for the coming months, but old habits die hard and I also don't want to get lulled into complacency.) Also, I live alone, so things can't go to waste. I can't go out grabbing this and that all willy-nilly, only to use a small portion of it, especially if it's not on sale!

So my cooking is largely of the "What the hell do I already have in my fridge and on my shelves?" school. In this case, it resulted in my frittata being made of eggs, quinoa, mozzarella cheese and regular ol' white mushrooms, with a dash of dried jalapeño and garnished with spicy guacamole.

Measure out your dry quinoa (1 cup dry makes about 3 cups cooked) and rinse it in cool water. This is a pain in the ass, because you need to strain the water out but the grains are damn small. I put the dry quinoa in a bowl, filled it with water, mixed it around by hand, noted its resemblance in texture to Floam, and then put a double layer of paper towel on top of the bowl and dumped the water out over the sink. A little did end up getting stuck to the paper towel, but it worked pretty well.

Add 2 parts water to 1 part quinoa. Bring it to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes, until the water is absorbed. Let sit for 5 minutes, then fluff with a fork.

While the quinoa is cooking, mix two hand-beaten eggs, a handful-and-a-half of chopped mushrooms, a handful of grated mozzarella and a dash of dried jalapeño. Also, turn on your broiler.

Add about a half-cup of cooked quinoa to the other stuff. Mix all of that up. Dump it into a pan or oven-safe skillet that's been slicked up with some olive oil. Cook it on the stovetop for a couple minutes. Then shove it into the oven for a few more minutes, until the egg is set. Dump it onto a plate, then add a dollop of spicy guac on top.

So that was my lunch, along with a couple cups of green tea. Dinner was my usual, a spinach salad with half an avocado and a dash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, with today's variant being blueberries and two strips of bacon cooked up really crispy and crumbled on top. (With the added pleasure of further bacon grease collection -- I had guests over the weekend, and there was a morning of bacon and eggs -- for use of some sort in the near future. Not quite sure what it will be yet. If they have some good collards, that might be the ticket.) Dessert was some leftover sweetened peaches with homemade whipped cream, leftovers from the ginger buttermilk biscuits with peaches and cream that I'd made for my cast on opening night this past week.

I don't usually talk about food (in the context of health, that is) or exercise at all. I grew up with it being an important but gravely serious thing, with an unhealthily obese and diabetic parent with an eating addiction, and being scared to talk about it myself, with one less-than-positive comment about my own weight that I made as a young adolescent at home being responded to with "What, are you anorexic or something?" But I want to be a fit, healthy person with the energy and endurance for a demanding career -- in addition to, full honesty, being pretty vain and having certain styles that I like requiring a certain body type -- and hey, maybe some things that I've found that seem to help me with my life might be of use to others.

When it comes to exercise, it's a little like my cooking -- I don't want to have to use any fancy specific equipment. Simple, high-energy and not too asinine-looking are my main criteria. Not that I have any real objection to making a fool out of myself -- much of my life can attest to that -- but I find it much more motivating when I feel badass rather than when I'm trying to do some obscure move where I stick my butt out at a 40-degree angle for 7 seconds while twisting my arm around my ear or something. I don't doubt that some of those such moves are very targeted and effective, but I prefer a more straightforward, intuitive approach. So if I'm not out running, this generally leads me to kickboxing or dance based workouts. Workout DVDs and youtube vids are my favorites; I like having an instructor to follow, because then I can focus my energy on the action rather than trying to remember what to do.

I use this video for my "light" days, immediately following it with 15-20 minutes of strength work.

For my full-out cardio days, when it's cool enough for me to not have to escape to the gym (I don't have air conditioning), I really like this one, which is what I used this morning.

(Have any favorites of your own? I'd love to get links!)

Otherwise, I like about 45 minutes of running on the treadmill, shifting back and forth between 5-6mph and flat-to-moderate inclines, with 5 minutes warm-up/cool-down on either end. I also recently bought a Jillian Michaels DVD in a bout of retail therapy (again, work-related, though that was arguably a healthier coping method than the s'mores cookie that was the size of half my face), and I'm kind of excited and a little bit scared. Watching through the first week's workout today, to find out what I'm getting myself into, I was sometimes a little unsure about whether I was getting fitness instructed or dommed, and even more unsure about how I felt about it, but, well, we'll see how it goes.

Anyhow, the main point is: get your spirit pumped up! Like these dudes!

I bet they'd eat the shit out of some quinoa.