If I Write It Like This, and You Read It Like That...

I don't know what to tell you. I still haven't written anything in over a week. So here's Just Some Stuff.

I am just under page 300 in Infinite Jest. Yay! I'm finding it easier to read than I did when I started. It's not much more compelling to me, per se, but reading this book is kind of like a hobby all on its own, beyond just the hobby of reading. Wallace writes so particularly, often being at once convivial and excessively intricate in his style, and now that I'm more accustomed to it I'm finding it enjoyable. Kind of la-dee-dah, even if you don't go anywhere with this, I'll still read it, it's fun to read. He also inspires me to break the rules.

Aspects of my work life were very yucky over this week.

I attempted to re-create in my kitchen one of the only restaurant items for which I get such a ridiculous craving that no number of days will stamp it out, and nothing else will do: southwest egg rolls from Chili's. This follows on my successful experiments with at-home hot & sour soup, pork fried rice, and barbecue chicken pizza. Matt noted that all the stuff I bought to make the southwest egg rolls at home probably meant that it cost just as much to make them here as it would have if I'd gone half a mile to Chili's and picked them up. So he didn't get to have any.

They came out all right. I tried both baking and deep-frying; the lack of a fan in our kitchen means that deep-frying is a rare occasion, because the whole house smells like cooked oil for days after a fry. The baked ones were passable and the deep-fried ones were excellent. The sauce didn't really work out at first, but was better the second day. The idea of made-from-scratch ranch sitting in my refrigerator is still pretty cool, even if it doesn't taste exactly right.

In the time I have between now and today's next required event, I really want to lie on the couch and zone out on a movie. I had an unpleasant medical appointment today and I want to eat pita chips and let some self-pity carom around in my head. What I should do is work a little more.

Celine Dion's "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" is like a low-level obsession of mine in the last couple of weeks. I haven't liked her since I was about 11 and owned the CD of hers with "If You Asked Me To" on it. I have never been so tired of a song as I was of "My Heart Will Go On [While You Stay Here and Drown]" (no, not even "Semi-Charmed Life"), I am bothered by her thinness, and I think she kind of overdoes it, in general, when singing. But one day a few weeks ago I just had to hear "It's All Coming Back to Me Now", and I YouTubed it, and yesterday I listened to it on repeat like 15 times while I worked. (So many reasons why I don't want to activate Spotify.) I have NO earthly idea where this came from. It's kind of worrying.

If I ever get back into my book, you'll be the first to know. And I hope things will ease up soon so I'll be able to. But, sigh, not this weekend.