Winner winner chicken dinner

I cook.

I cook and bake, probably more often than I ought to. Almost certainly more than is practical or economical. Groceries are criminally expensive in Manhattan, and most times, it actually is about as cheap to get steam-table takeout from the bodega or cheap Chinese or a sandwich from the grocery.

However, I can't give up the psychological benefits of cooking for myself. The meal is a defined little project, a tiny little conquest that I can plot and plan and get excited to execute, to be satisfied with when it's complete.

Often, when I'm stewing over some semi-intractable problem (a girl, career concerns, whatnot) it's very therapeutic to tackle something smaller, something defined and definitely do-able. This is how my apartment gets cleaned, and this is how I end up with a cake about every other week.

Tonight, my distraction project was a roast chicken dinner. With mash.

Potatoes: 2.5 pounds Yukon gold potatoes, skinned and quartered. Boil for 20 minutes with a handful of Kosher salt. Whip with an electric mixer and about a half-cup of milk.

Chicken: 6 pound bird. Remove giblets, wash inside and out and pat dry. Rub with oil, Kosher salt, paprika, and garlic powder. Stuff with coarsely chopped onion and celery. Bake at 375 for about two and three-quarters hours.

My apartment is half really damn clean, and half a pit of chaos. See, I have this bizarre mental block about putting clothes away. Doing laundry, that I don't mind at all. Honestly, it's one of my favorite chores, but that's not even a concern here, since since I moved to my current apartment I get fluff and fold anyway. No, it's just taking these already folded and clean clothes and putting them in the damn dresser that's somehow beyond me.

So, the floor of my bedroom is almost always completely covered in a knee-high drift of clothes, clothes which are (notionally, at least) clean. Whenever I need to find something, which is frequent since you can lose a God damn basketball in my room, I chuck armloads of clothes onto the bed until the floor is clear or until I find what I want. In my head, I promise, "OK, well, before I go to sleep, I have to put everything away since it's all on the bed!"

Not really. Every night at about one o'clock in the a.m., I wind up sweeping the whole mess back onto the floor... and the circle of life is complete.

Yesterday all the clothes made a portentous and slightly longer journey, this time out to the futon in the living room. Then I could sweep and mop my bedroom floor for the first time in about a quarter of a year. The non-foldables (socks and underwear) have already been put away, and now I have the task of actually folding just about every piece of clothing I own and trying to find a place for it in either the dresser or the wardrobe.

Honestly, I should just burn all this stuff. I really only wear about two pairs of pants and maybe six or seven shirts. Everything else is just a tease.

More mess.

The mess.

Sentimental T-shirts... unthrowoutable!

Thwarted Again!

I met my friend Chris to work out this morning at Palladium; we're both attempting to reestablish our respective training mojos to their proper levels.

Finding (for the second day in a row) that the swim team had the pool thorougly occupied, we biked for a half hour, then erged (me) or ran (Chris) for another half hour. Afterwards, we had a little brekky-brek at Bus Stop on Bleecker and Hudson before going to Grove Pharmacy to pick up Chris's anti-malarial prelude to his India sojourn.

Piercing, Sucking Mouthparts

I just got a library card, after living in New York for about two and a half years. It's more than a little surprising that it took me this long to hook, lamprey-like, to the succulent underbelly of the New York Public Library.

I took out The Master (Toibin), The Book on the Book, Underworld (Delillo), and Summerland (Chabon).

Vive le Puppy

France, on occasion, gives something worthwhile to world culture: Balzac, Flaubert... and this adorable French bulldog puppy.

I took this outside Gray's Papaya on Sixth and Carmine on the last semi-decent day of weather before the current wintry mix of cold and rain and cold rain descended on New York.

Just taking up space

A little something, here and there, from time to time.

Separate from Long Ride Home, which is looked at by my grandparents among others. I figure to write a bit more here, perhaps.