one month, no weeks, and no days.

Yes, that is a schoolgirl being torn apart by a seagull.

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For the first time I can remember, I'm actually having the thought "Why would you go back to drinking?" It's just been too many perky-feeling mornings in a row. I feel like most of my mental capacity is available and ready to be accessed if necessary. I understand that I love beer, and often enjoy a good red wine, but right now it's still very easy to put myself back in my February state of mind, and it's just a dehydrated, foggy, deluded, powerless, unhappy mess, and I seriously can't imagine what kind of drinking would have been enjoyable enough to justify that.

So I think I'm making a radical decision here: I think I will henceforth switch my default social setting to "not drinking", with occasional, perhaps monthly, perhaps less, perhaps more, bouts of "drinking". And we will see how sustainable this is. Maybe it's not. But as plans go, this would seem to be better for me than having a default setting of "drinking".

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So what happened since we last talked?

Hm. We watched The Birds (annoying and kind of brilliant sometimes, more on this later), Rushmore (finally...it was OK, better than expected, I'll call it Wes's third best), and 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (pretty riveting, not as grueling as I expected); I bought an expensive fuzzbox; KK shut her shit down; my gig was fine, albeit without any interaction with the guitar hero in question, which was actually totally fine; we got some totally un-disappointing takeout from Som Tam Thai; we made a very American Sunday dinner that pressed good and necessary buttons but was highly unphotographable (left), yes, just like My Funny Valentine ha ha, except that if you crop it right, your mind kind of imagines a better-looking dish than it actually was.

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When a friend and fellow blogger stops blogging, yes, I imagine one tends to examine one's own blogging habits/needs/rewards/motivations/etc (just like when a friend quits drinking I imagine, ha). And, yes, I think that as much as I know and understand why she stopped, I know and understand why I don't stop...

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sweet potatoes with spiced butter.

2 sweet potatoes

3 tbsp butter
2 tbsp dark molasses
tiny pinch cinnamon
slightly larger pinch cloves
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (bigger than either of the two previous pinch fractions)

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caramelized fennel with orange.

2 bulbs fennel, roughly julienned
2 or 3 tbsp butter
1/8 cup orange juice
zest of an orange
pinch o' thyme
salt
pepper

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