Spam No. 1: Bring more happiness into your nightlife

These fat little froggies will be making their way into a show tonight for lady printmakers. I'm not a printmaker, but at least I think I've got the lady part down. These little babies are the first installment in my series of drawings whose titles have been ripped straight from the subject lines of my spam box, and the spam boxes of other genorous e-donors.


I like a last minute challenge, and sometimes when opportunity knocks, you've got to draw some amphibians getting it on.

The Real Deal

I feel the need to offer everyone some real food after that fish food in a box bit. Here's a roasted chicken, stolen (and slightly adapted) from the treasure troves of Jamie Oliver that never fails to impress or taste good. It's not even hard to make. This is one moist bird.

The Goods:
1 4½lb free-range organic chicken
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4½lb potatoes, peeled
1 large, preferably unwaxed, lemon
1 whole bulb of garlic, broken into cloves
a handful of fresh thyme
Olive oil
a handful of fresh rosemary sprigs, leaves picked

You can use dried herbs if you're feeling cheap or lazy, it doesn't ruin the bird and I won't think any less of you. Or at least not much less of you.

The Instructions:
Rub the chicken inside and out with a generous amount of salt and freshly ground black pepper. Do this in the morning if possible, then cover the chicken and leave in the fridge until you're ready to start cooking it for lunch or dinner. By doing this, you'll make the meat really tasty when cooked. Preheat your oven to 190ºC/375ºF/gas 5. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Cut the potatoes into golf-ball-sized pieces, put them into the water with the whole lemon and the garlic cloves, and cook for 12 minutes. Drain and allow to steam dry for 1 minute (this will give you crispier potatoes), then remove the lemon and garlic. Toss the potatoes in the pan while still hot so their outsides get chuffed up and fluffy – this will make them lovely and crispy when they roast.

While the lemon is still hot, carefully stab it about 10 times. Take the chicken out of the fridge, pat it with kitchen paper and rub it all over with olive oil. Push the garlic cloves, the whole lemon and the thyme into the cavity, then put the chicken into a roasting tray and cook in the preheated oven for around 45 minutes. Remove the chicken to a plate. Some lovely fat should have cooked out of it into the roasting tray, so toss the potatoes into this with the rosemary leaves. Shake the tray around, then make a gap in the centre of the potatoes and put the chicken back in. Cook for a further 45 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked and the potatoes are nice and golden. (You can tell the chicken is cooked when the thigh meat pulls easily away from the bone and the juices run clear.)

Chum Bucket

This morning's bleary eyed commute was marked by a lone memorable mindfuck. The ad for something known as the Popeye's "Tackle Box." Now I've seen some pretty ineffective marketing strategies, but the tackle box? What is appealing about a grease soaked, cardboard tub of bait? Has economic downturn caused Popeye's to search for more affordable sources of product? A box full of fried night crawlers or meal worms, perhaps? Apparently this involves shrimp, fries, and a biscuit, but truthfully the only thing I can think of is that machine at the harbor that stands at the ready, waiting to devour fish bits and little girl arms alike. Popeye's Tackle Box? A big thumbs (flippers?) down.

A bicycle ride is an excellent, and perhaps inevitable way for one to truly get to the bottom of what's in one's own head. I've zipped through quiet side streets, my head swimming with the sort of thoughts that would possibly cause me to fail a corporate psychiatric evaluation. Today's 15 miles, perhaps ill conceived considering today was only my sophomore attempt at cycling since November, proved to be both an emotional and physical challenge. In addition to proving exactly how out of shape I am, suddenly I was experiencing the gamut of emotions. Anger at my lack of speed lead to feelings of failure and ineptitude. Plowing forward into the wind, pushing my way up hills, over bridges, and winding along the lake seemed like an insurmountable challenge instead of an accomplishment. By the time I reached my neighborhood, familiar smells of tortillas and onions in the air, tears were streaming in rivers down my flushed cheeks. Like many people, I relish a good cry, and despite being made painfully aware of my own feelings, I feel energized and ready to get back in the saddle, so to speak.

Grit

We drove through Gary, Indiana at sunset. I was sleepy from the sun and I could feel the sand grinding into my scalp and a sunburn already flushing across my face. As we passed boarded up houses, and the kinds of monolithic buildings that it had never occurred to me that anyone would abandon, it seemed as though we were driving through the Midwest's particular brand of Wild West ghost town. I felt the sort of sadness you can feel in the core of your teeth, in the very roots of your trunk, as it were, and then suddenly I was overcome by a rage so intense it made me want to see the entire city razed to the ground. At that moment, sitting side by side in the car, listening to Neil Young, I knew we would always be tied to one another. What I didn't know at that moment was that, like the founders of so many worn out Rust Belt steel towns, I had put all my eggs in one basket, and tied the handle to the bow of the Titanic.

Detritus

I've always romanticized clutter of a certain sort. If a high school had the sort of superlatives meant for the slightly offbeat, I'd be voted most likely to die breaking into an abandoned building. I love the idea of a room untouched by time, inadvertently discovered; Like coming across Miss Havisham's wedding feast by chance. I've entertained the thought of renting a run-down apartment or hotel for a photo shoot, or better yet, trespassing into one. One day I hope to win the lottery and buy a particular abandoned Masonic Temple and transform it into something glorious, while keeping its original air of mystery and neglect, of course. I think, at least in part, my undying love for The Virgin Suicides has more to do with the brilliant imagery of the slow demise of the Lisbon house. That will probably always hold true, though I think now will always be a little bit tarnished by my in depth look at the upstairs bathroom in my father's house. As I was getting ready for my sister's baby shower, and desperately in need of makeup, I tore through the bathroom, I suddenly realized that it's probably not normal to have unearthed a dusty collection of Love's perfume sprays, Tinkerbell nail polishes, and a variety of gift baskets from The Body Shop purchased in the early 90's. Suddenly the row of little bottles that seemed so precious, felt weird and made me think of a word that seems so much more emphatic en français: malheureuse. Since my mother's death, my dad has managed to have a cleaning lady come or attempt cooking and vacuuming, but there's a definite air of appearances kept up, and my dusty old dolls or crappy wall patching jobs are more signs of a slow decline than of someone's shitty domestic skills. A house in which the "little things" have been ignored for so long makes me feel like I can relate to the imagery in Eugenides' book in a way that I really wish that I didn't.

Ass-burgers?

There's been more than one occasion on which I've wondered if I might have Asperger's Syndrome. Ok, I actually asked my mother if she'd ever thought I might be retarded. Luckily she had the decency to say no, she never did. See, that's the tact of someone who definitely does not have Asperger's. Maybe I just can't tell the difference between general ennui and a mild form of Autism, or maybe I'm just bored, but sometimes I can really relate to the experiences described by those who have been put on a mood stabilizer and feel like they've completely flatlined. Maybe I need to spice it up a bit? Go on a vacation alone? Meet some new friends? Seek psychiatric treatment? Perhaps I just watch too much TV. So many choices. For someone who cries so much, I really don't get that riled up about anything on either end of the spectrum. I can think of the lone experience which actually has caused me long lasting, soul crushing emotion of any type, both good and bad, and if that's what feelings are, I am terrified. I'm still living the feelings rollercoaster every day and I would like to jump off please. Why couldn't I have been born a Small Wonder? I mean, created... yes, created.

From couch potato to career-girl...

This leaving the house thing is really quite the transition. I will admit that I got a little too comfortable lazing around on the couch, snacking, watching endless hours of my guilty pleasure, Gilmore Girls and the delightfully trashy exploits of Bret's Bus of STDs. Long gone are the days of getting up at 10am and snacking on bacon which is probably a good thing, considering the grumpy realizations of my recent visit to Corporate Health for a work physical. So hibernation has taken it's toll on my thighs, what can I do?

I've gone from prancing around in vintage jammies, playing house to hunting for vintage careerwear so I can play office. I'm starting to wonder if my overactive fantasy life is taking over my life. Do other people have to try to "play office" just to make it through the workday? When I first got this job offer, visions of myself as the office tart, dressed in pencil skirts and blouses with big bows at the neck danced in my head. I can't help it, life is just that much better when played out as a sexy film noir. Unfortunately real office life isn't quite so glamorous as all that. Insert all the excitement of bathrooms that smell like weird cleansers, disorganized offices, and attempting to master all the nuances of FileMaker Pro. Suddenly corporate fantasy has fallen by the wayside. Perhaps it's for the better for me to be given a dose of reality, because let's face it, it happens pretty rarely, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop hunting for the perfect office attire and trying to make being a secretary all the more sassy.

Recommended reading:

More starving than artist...

It's true that I've recently started a new full time job after being tenuously employed for about 14 months. That said, and considering today was only my 5th day on the job, I've never been so broke in my life, or so I say today. I've always been one of those people for whom poverty has been in the eye of the beholder. I've always thought I was broke, even when I was scrimping my pennies, not for groceries or bills, but for a pair of Marc Jacobs shades or a jaunt to House on the Rock for the weekend. I will admit that I've never been truly on top of "the value of a dollar." It makes me cringe to say the dreaded words "in this economic climate" because really, I have no idea what it's like for a lot of people out there, but let's face it, things have looked better. I'm not sure the US economy is entirely to blame for my months languishing on the couch getting bloated right along with Vincent D'Onofrio on Law & Order Criminal Intent, but I'd like to believe that I'm qualified enough and intelligent enough to have landed a job more quickly under better circumstances. Having been scraping the bottom of the barrel for some time now, I thought I knew all about being "poor" and having to be a mastermind of monetary delegation, all the while managing to find a way to take myself out for drinks or splurge on a lunch at Fox and Obel more than is reasonably sane considering my income. Today though, I may have turned over a new leaf in being fiscally humbled, yet again. I bought $1.65 worth of gas with change scraped out of the bottom of my purse just so I wouldn't run out of gas on the highway. Here's to getting my first paycheck and using it for something practical instead of blowing it on shoes with the faces of little mice. Feel free to buy me a cheeseburger though, really. I'm not too proud to accept your charity.

Old and Moldy

As I sit sipping highballs in my vintage underpinnings, I often feel the need to recognize and accept the fact that I'm probably trapped in the past. I have no problem with this, and I'm sure the vintage dollies who are older than I am would agree if they could open their pretty little mouths. Apparently there's this whole world of technology out there that a terminal nostalgiaphile like myself is terrified of. I think I aged myself one thousand years when I told someone that I not only don't "get" Twitter, but I don't want to. I stand by that statement. However, even I will concede to some technology, I do have an iphone after all, I'm not living in a cave. This gorgeous laptop is for all the kids out there like me who still spend their days hunting for old typewriters and rotary dial phones in their attics and basements.