Cherish it. You don't know how lucky you are. Family is important and the arguments that happen are just stupid bullshit. They don't matter. Just chillax and enjoy being with the people that love you.

Happy Christmahannukwanzeid

Ever since I've gotten into lolita, I've been obsessed with macarons! First I thought Minnesota was too lame to have macarons (lawlwut). Through googling, I found Patrick's cafe. Then there was this post about macarons on EGL. Then theres the Sweetsbakeshop on St. Paul. I think I'm going to make a list of places that sell macarons.


Patrick's Bakery and Cafe: Found after googling. The flavors I've seen so far are blueberry, mango, lemon, pistachio rasberry, chocolate, and may be some others. They are have sizes a big one that you need 2 hands for and a bitesize verison. Each costs $2. I've tasted all the flavors so far. First I though they were the holy grail of macarons, like all macarons tasted like this. But after eating other shop's macarons, there are the worst tasting (wow that sounded harsh). The hard shell is much to prone to breaking and exploding, because of the amount of space between the chewy center. The chewy center is...lacking. There is a big amount of space between the shell and center. They also are TOO sweet. Like...idk, just way too sweet for my tastes. They seem to be kinda stale also. May be its due to the amount of space in between. It doesn't taste that good overall. I don't think I'll ever come back there.

Trader Joe's: Found after reading this egl post. THey are the best deal. 12 for $4.99! Now for mass produced macarons, they are pretty good. It has 2 flavors, vanilla and chocolate. They aren't as sweet as Patrick's which is a plus. The shell isn't as fragile, and there isn't this big space between the shell and chewy center. Its also bit size so I can just keep eating them lol These are my 2nd fav so far.

Sweets Bakeshop: Found through goolging. They also sell their macarons at the Local D'lish on Wednesday. The flavor they have are banana, bourbon caramel, chile pepper (wait, what?), chocolate, lavender caramel, mango, mint basil, mocha, rum caramel, salted caramel, sweets, turtle, vanilla bean. Each costs $1 HOLY CRAP THEMS BE MACRONS. I tried their salted caramel, and holt shit it is tasty. It tastes just like sea salt ice cream!! This is FUCKING SUPERIOR to Patick's! It tastes fresh! The shell and chewy center is closer and just.....god, they are goooood. My favorite so far.

Obento Ya I hear they have green tea macarons her. Well, I obviously can't go there just for macarons. Hope their food is good so I can get a chance to tastes them.

Salty Tart: In the Global Market. I've never seen any macarons at this place...hmm. Well, can't comment on this one.

Maison Darras: Can't comment.

So I guess I had a pretty massive freakout over the past couple of days. It's chronicled on Twitter, more or less. To me it seemed to start with a horrible dream I had Monday morning. In this nightmare I was making a real effort to reconnect with my characters, but I'd gotten the wrong ones, which were more or less the Cure. (Anybody with half an eye can see the Cure's influence on Lost Souls, or so I assume.) They had all gone down to Shell Beach and commandeered barges, a tugboat, and some kind of tanker, with which they were planning a terrorist attack. Samuel L. Jackson was tearing down the Reggio highway in a furious attempt to stop them, but everybody knew it was my fault and hated me, including Chris, who promptly dumped my ass.

Some of my worst dreams are those in which I'm back with one of my exes. I remember Chris and feel the lack of him, but know I have to be with this once-beloved foe instead. It is the hollowest, loneliest feeling I've known in dream. Usually I wake up, become aware of him sleeping beside me, and feel tremendous relief. This time I woke up within the dream and knew I'd really done it, I'd finally fucked up bad enough to lose him (by putting the Cure on terrorist barges in Shell Beach, yes, I see the absurdity of this, but it didn't help at the time). I saw life without him, an endless featureless plain the color of a bruise. I cried and woke myself and him up saying "Chris. Chris. Chris" and babbling about wrong characters on barges, trying to explain this utter incoherence.

The ensuing day did not pass well. Even tranked to the gills, I couldn't seem to stop sobbing and panicking and doomsaying. I could not bathe. I could not even consider leaving the house (this has been a problem lately). I finally called my intermittent shrink and sobbed and babbled some more until she agreed to give me a few, VERY few, barbiturates to help me function over these next few days. I don't stress much about the holidays (we stopped doing gifts years ago, stocked up on stuff and unable to afford it), but my mom and a dear friend are coming to visit, and I would like to be able to act like something resembling a human being around them. Those who were reading back in the dark days of 2005 will remember my adventures with Dr. Jesus and the Great BUTALBITAL. Butalbital has come into my life again, with its idolatrous-sounding name and its extremely short-term help. Short-term because it's addictive as shit and not even slightly appropriate for treating long-term depression, but thank God she heard enough of the fraying in my voice to throw me a quick merciful lifeline (a scant 10 pills to be parceled out carefully over at least 4 days, worryworts) until I can go see her and figure out why my usual shit's not working anymore. Pharmaceuticals, you've nearly killed me and you've saved my life, both many times. Just like a goddamn lover, ain'tcha? ("Almost had your hooks in me, din'tcha, dear?")

So today my Butalbital and I did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed the house, and baked a lovely chocolate chip-pecan pie. Tomorrow we'll greet our guests and try to absorb their love through the merciful haze that says so kindly, "No, that bruise color isn't filling your vision, you don't reek of rotting meat, these people love you, they're not counting the hours until they can get away or silently analyzing the stupidity of everything you say."

So that's the story of my big freakout. As ever, I tell it because of my determination to chronicle the life of one writer's journey through loss, depression, addiction, sorrow, joy, and sometimes redemption in the wake of the post-Katrina federal levee failure. I've written no fiction in three years now, so this is really all I have to offer, and I give it to you without shame. There's no reason for shame. I wasn't like this before August 29, 2005. I'd dealt with depression off and on since I was 17, but at the time of the levee failure I was on no psychiatric drugs, writing prolifically, and (I thought) fairly happy. Now I struggle most days just not to be a mess, and there are a hell of a lot of people who are a hell of a lot worse off than I am ... and a hell of a lot more people who survived the levee failure and its aftermath, but not the lives they tried to piece back together afterward. They gave themselves to the Great Subaudible. I tell you these things in part to keep myself from doing the same.

Today I feel lost and alone but that's ok.

( uhm hi... )

yeah... yeah i know lj land. i've totally abandoned you. sorry. i'll try to get something together. i've more time now since i'm on winter break. no promises though.

probably a photodump soon regardless. november was an epic month concert-wise.

i miss you guys. i have a lot i feel like i need to tell you about. haha. well, until next time. love youssss...

I've just wasted the last hour notifying various file-sharing sites to remove illegally posted copies of my books. I'm not even going to say what I think about so-called fans who use these slimeball sites to steal work from writers, except this. I hate to give these sites any publicity at all, but I will say that other writers should check scribd.com and 4shared.com for stolen work.

A few days ago I tweeted the statement, "I think art about New Orleans, especially post-K, should be made by New Orleanians. #thereisaidit" I define New Orleanians as people living in the greater New Orleans area long-term as well as devoted exiles. I do NOT include jet-setters who own New Orleans homes that stand empty 90% of the time or those who left the city post-K and don't want to return.

But my Twitter statement still makes me antsy, because in general, I don't believe in using the word "should" around art at all. I've always been deeply suspicious of any statement beginning "Artists (writers, whatever) should..." that doesn't end "...do the best work they're capable of, full stop."

As well, I had made a hero's exception for Josh Neufeld, author of A.D.: After the Deluge, and a friend e-mailed to ask why. My friend wrote, "I bought that damned book because I thought he was a New Orleanian. Boy was I pissed when I got it and found out he was a New Yorker. I think it's a good book but if I had known he was a New Yorker living in New York I never would have bought it, to be quite honest. If he's giving profits from the book to the people who need it most, I'll feel ok about it, but I feel kind of like a duped schmuck as it is!"

I replied, "Neufeld = honorary New Orleanian because he did major, major rescue work down here after the levees failed, Like, lifesaving work. He has also put together a great A.D. website with tons of Katrina info & resources; http://www.smithmag.net/afterthedeluge/ . I couldn't find any indication that he had donated proceeds to us, but I'm kinda OK with that. I know how much it costs to research & make a book, and graphic novels sell even worse than regular books. Most likely there are no 'proceeds.' He also financed his own book tour, & I noticed that many of his signing events were also benefits for Common Ground & other local charities, so that's good."

But I realized that if I believe Josh Neufeld could get it right, there must be other non-New Orleanians out there who can get it right too. And for me, at least these days, that's what is most important in art about New Orleans: getting it right. Even before the storm, so much of it didn't. And if you haven't lived or spent major chunks of time here since the levees failed, you do not know what it was like those first couple of years. You can't research it. You can't imagine it from the footage you saw on TV. You might think you can, your heart might break for us and you might try to tell people why we still matter and if so I thank you, but you don't know the stenches, the tears, the daily assaults on the mind and spirit. You can never know these things if you weren't here. And you should be glad.

So I'm trying to at least modify my "should." It's hard to come up with another pithy line, though. Art about New Orleans, especially post-K, is less likely to suck and be offensive if made by New Orleanians? Art about New Orleans, especially post-K, has virtually no chance of getting it right if not made by New Orleanians? I don't know. Artists will, and should, make art about the things that grab them by the throat and won't let go. So if what happened to us after the federal levees failed does that to you, then by all means, go with it. At least your heart will be in the right place, and that will show even if you don't know the Ninth Ward from the Lower Ninth Ward. But if you decide -- as many already seem to have done -- that "Hey! Post-Katrina New Orleans would be a really cool, edgy place to set this!", then may God have mercy on your soul, because New Orleans will not.

Does anyone remember/can anyone track down the post I made here back in '05 or '06 about the (I thought) non-confrontational but brilliant way Chris handled the racist man who sold us a car in Bibleland during our exile? I wanted to show it to someone, but after looking through two months' worth of post-K posts, I can take no more.

The recipe was friggin' awesome. I had two helpings after a week of no appetite. I revised it a bit and renamed it Man Casserole because it seems like a perfect thing for a lonely man to fix and eat up from ingredients he might have around, but it is great for all genders.

MAN CASSEROLE

Ingredients:

Pam
2-3 Yukon Gold or similar potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
6 strips of thick-cut bacon
3/4 cup chicken broth or water
Handful of sliced pickled jalapeno peppers, or to taste
1 cup grated sharp cheese

Preheat oven to 375. Spray 8" x 8" baking pan with Pam. Line with one layer of potatoes. Cut bacon slices in half crosswise and lay them over potatoes. Top bacon layer with another layer of potatoes. Scatter jalapenos over top, then pour liquid (chicken broth or water) over whole thing. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes. Then scatter about 1 cup of grated cheese (any hard, sharp kind will do, or even Pepper Jack in a pinch) over top and bake for 30 more minutes or until golden-brown and bubbly on top. Casserole is now ready to serve, but if you don't want to eat it yet, cover it with foil, turn off oven, and just leave it in there -- it will get even better. As long as you don't burn the cheese, I imagine it's pretty hard to overcook, though it will begin to decompose eventually.