My boss' husband grows misty eyed at the thought of the italian ricotta chceesecakes of his Brooklyn youth. After many failed attempts at making it himself, he abandoned the project. So, for his birthday i thought i'd surprise him by having one made by my dear chef Dayna, who formerly worked at Rocco (my favorite italiannplace in rochester)
I was going to film the whole process for him but clearly i have the attention span of a toddler and this is all i got. At least you can learn to make some ricotta!




And you can use our abundant snow drifts for cooking! Harold adored his cheesecake and it was gone in a day.

Another frigid and glittery winter weekend with the severe turns of emotional weather that the season has primed me for. Bravo, February, you big JERK. Thursday I went to yoga like a good girl and did some nice Warrior II shit and backbends that kill me because I am super flexible for forward bends and brittle old man when it comes to backbending. Always nice when it all ends in some cozy constructive rest in a sea of drug rugs. In any restorative pose situation, I like to steal peeks at my fellow resters and everyone always looks so cute to me, swaddled in their blankets. So I decided to get up and take a picture.


Then, I continued on to Butapub, which is a basement pub that was having a packed trivia night crowd. They focus on pork dishes with a slight Asian influence. Casey was not as impressed with the fries, but I have a total boner for any wine based glaze or sauce or gravy and this shit is a savory pool in the bottom of deliciously crisp fries. I have no pictures, only the ghost of it on my tongue. My friend Rahul and I played pool and Don cheered us on.

Friday the sun finally broke free and allowed Arden and I to go cross country skiing at Durand park up by Lake Ontario for a few hours. I haven't been x-country skiing in 15 years and I'm fat as hell now, so I wondered if I would twist my ankle and end up in a giant pool of hair, tears, and shame. After an initial boot difficulty and some helpful silver hair people, I redeemed myself and skiied like it was my job. The sun/sweat combo allowed me to go jacket-free and feel like some kind of pro ski badass until we found any little hill to go down, wherin i cooed like a delighted toddler. ((e:joe)) would like this park because there are many hills you can slide around on if you don't mind the plodding awkwardness of scooching your way up first.





i have a crush on this horse. it's 19 hands high and should basically stomp everyone around it to death, but has mercifully decided to let people give it blue ribbons instead. I totally get the whole Equus thing, horses are sexy as hell. look at that glistening coat and all of those muscles. Little girls know what's up and it's horses.


Casey came up Saturday for Sad Talk Night, which was alternatingly agonizing and humorous and bittersweet. We commenced the evening with a UFC fight, which in itself was kind of hilarious if you think about the entire situation. I love him dearly and I hope he knows it. Pouffy eyed and sniffly, we stumbled out to the kitchen for snacks and I made Michael Caine's potatoes, which i will make again and give you the recipe for because it is crispy deliciousness. Restorative starch for quivering souls.

Sunday we repotted some of my wayward succulents and the lone Tough Guy Garlic. I received this garlic on my birthday two years ago from a drunk friend and it was a tender little seedling in a vintage milk glass jar. It has grown into a teenager in that tiny jar, sitting on a freezing windowsill and suffering general neglect from a drunken mother and STILL it persists in magnificent living! While there's still no god, there's garlic plants to make me feel like I might survive another year.

found an owl planter in my fave color at Walgreens

the NerdMonk holds court amongst the plants


Last night i literally burrowed a cave in this giant comforter and hid inside of it all evening and passed out in there on the loveseat, thus cranking my neck into a stiff and painful position. Fortunately, it's dental assistant's appreciation (aka. "bullshit holiday"}week and the chiropractor next to my office was offering consultations for us servants. if i knew there was a massage table so near to me, i'd be getting therapeutically rubbed down every chance i got

The chiropractor was nice and nerdy like me so we were babbling about muscles and joints and the fact that I don't sleep in a bed or wear shoes if i can help it. i'm probably a chiropractor's nightmare with the things i do to myself, but yoga balances it out a little bit. Maybe i'm on some kind of hormonal high here, but i was getting all examined and palpated and i was thinking if i was a dude, i would have a total boner because it's mildly erotic to have a stranger patting you down on a table. i'm into it. i'm also into his massage gun machine thing and was hoping he would walk out of the room so i could play with it. i'm sure he knew this, for he never let me touch any of the machines, dammit. Anyway, I was thinking of how people get NoNo Touched in medical situations and everyone thinks "how could they let that happen?" but it's pretty easy, actually. The boundaries are blurred, it's hard to tell what you're supposed to do, what's part of the procedure, you don't want to be the weirdo who freaks out over something that is a routine part of the examination, etc. So I sympathize. In this case, the doctor was not attractive to me, and was the utmost professional, so that wasn't an issue. STILL, i found the equipment and situation to be most delightful and if the right chiropractor wanted to make some adjustments, well...
this poor guy has no idea i said all that. he was nice. he was a normal person and people should do business with him. If i start palpating someone below the trapezius in MY line of work, however, they should probably ask some questions.


My parents live in a shitty little town in PA that had a water main break last week which left them without water. All the resevoirs and tanks were empty and it was an emergency. I was horrified, but they took it in stride. Growing up, water conservation was an obsession, so my parents were probably a little pleased that it paid off. I felt guilty calling them from the tub, but I have been doing everything from the comfort of my bath, including studying, phone calls, editing, writing, and sleeping. I'm obsessed with taking baths. Epsom Salts and baking soda with lavendar. I bought a bathtub holder thingy and now I can take up residence in water. My patient and I were talking about how new houses are being built without bathtubs and he was outraged. My boss exclaimed, "I wouldn't even be FRIENDS with someone who doesn't want a bathtub!!" and we all shook our heads whilst drilling away. Because the only way to get through this savage season is under warm water.