If I hadn’t been drinking on a relatively empty stomache, I doubt I would have posted this. But booze makes me ballsy, so you can only imagine how cocky I feel after eating lunch at 4 and nothing since… but the three glasses of wine certainly help. So, hi. I’m Steff, I blog, and let’s ignore my shame. Have at this, then. Sigh. It’s Russian-novelist long. Next time we’ll explore the appeal of brevity. For now, tho…

I am, as they say in the vernacular, having a moment.

A heady moment, at that.

I was watching some semi-lame yet cool true crime reenactment on the History Channel when the narrator began telling the tale of how the criminals behind the notorious North Hollywood Shootout had taken booze mixed with Phenobarbital before they set out upon their heist.

And I remembered this foggy old conversation with my mother about how I was on Phenobarbital as a kid when I had epic grand mal seizures nearly every day. I was hardcore epileptic as a child. I’ve never written about this before. My mother insisted I stop taking Phenobarbital when she learned it apparently fucked with one’s hormones.

Wow. Wow. I’ve never really thought about it before. The epilepsy. Much of my childhood is a blur. I remember this one time, and it’s really fucking weird, actually… again, something I’ve never before spoken or written of, but I can remember this third person memory… I remember looking down upon myself, my mother, and my father, all three of us on the old formal red velvet sofa in the sitting room, me either with another of my 104+ fevers, or another grand mal seizure. Both my parents were so obviously scared and totally there for me, holding me and talking about when the hospital should come into the picture, and how I was so precarious that a trip might not be the wisest choice right then. And I remember it from a looking-down-on-me perspective. I dunno what that says to you, but I know I just got the chills.

Fuck, man. Whew. Looking down on myself. That’s taken two ways: the nearly-dead out-of-body way, and the hate-thyself kinda way. I’d have to say this one occasion was a little of each. Let’s ignore the first and think of the second. I’ve lived my whole life more or less consumed by my insecurities. I’m always hyperconscious of myself and my being, y’know? I’m tired of the hyperconsciousness. It’s so over. Now if I can just wrap my head around that.

I’ve always tried to have the I’m Fine appearance, but the reality is that I’ve spent my life allowing myself to be sort of defined by the problems of my childhood. Grand mal epilepsy, severe hearing loss, constant ear aches, and when I was younger I even had a speech impediment. (Now, though, I’m told I have Radio Voice. Hey, practice makes perfect. Just ask James Earl Jones.)

I’ve mentioned recently how I’ve quit my job. The job has been interfering with my after-hours life. I alluded in one posting to my recent lack of desire to write and how I could no longer abide that lack of passion I was feeling for the one thing I once most loved to do: writing. Yeah, that’s one reason.

The irony is, I loved this job. There’s so much to love about it. I was good at it; that is, until I stopped writing. Once I’m not writing, so much of myself falls away from me. I get sloppy, negative, and unfocused. Writing, as Jerry Maguire might say, completes me. It is me. I don’t give a fuck whether others love my writing (okay, I do) but I know that I’m a better person when I’m writing well. (Or as what I perceive to be “well”.) I’m empathetic, passionate, articulate, infused with joie de vivre, and even have a magnetism about me. It’s rare, though, that I write as well as I aspire to do, so it’s also rare that I maximize any of the qualities I’ve just mentioned. Now, however, I seem to be in one of my rare golden times, and I’m fucking loving it.

Nonetheless, I’ve quit my job. The reasons are multiple. Another of them is that I’ve stopped exercising. No swimming, no Pilates, no cycling, no hiking. Nothing. I’m so drained at the end of each day that it’s all I can do to sit on the couch, watch TV, and not fall asleep before 10.

No fucking way to live.

So. I’ve quit. Turned that page. Now I go back to the unstable, unfulfilling, but strangely awesome television job of captioning (i.e. : subtitling) , where my hours are my choosing, sometimes even my days, and the job is routine and manageable… and anti-social, so my mind bubbles over, and when I come home, I blow my proverbial top and write an hour or two. Hey, I’ve built a couple good blogs out of it, y’know?

But, man, did I disgress.

Back to the hard topic, though: I was a serious epileptic as a kid. I was diagnosed early with a rare kidney disorder and had bi-annual visits with the foremost kidney specialist in Western Canada back then. Every six months, a visit with the good doctor at Children’s Hospital. A battery of tests were run on me every time. Blood tests were practically weekly. I had a rare disorder and wound up documented in medical journals as “the kid that could”. I was in the hospital for a prolonged stay when they were about to take a kidney out – it was clinically dead and filling with fluids it couldn’t pump out. Bad things were happening. I was prescribed Bactrim*. Presto! Magic! I went into remission.

My kidney cleared up, so too did my epilepsy, as well as my chronic bronchitis and my ear aches. But the battle with the evils had turned me into a lazy kid. I could never handle activity before that, and never discovered the joys of being active, and my body grew accustomed to sloth. Thus the Pillsbury Era began. Poke my belly and I giggle still. Exercise hurts. Sometimes this is good. But back then? Well. That’s another story.

Here’s a tangent for you: One day, I found myself in my mid-teens, hanging out at UBC, getting tested by geneticists. Turns out my kidneys and ears were a result of my father’s genes. One of the interns working in my lab, testing me, made the off-hand comment that “it would be interesting to see what [my] kids turned out like”. Someone later commented that it would be interesting if I would allow for testing of my child’s genes if ever I was to become impregnated. I’m 33, about to hit 34, and I’m childless. I intend to remain this way. I have no idea if that intern’s comment has impacted my desire to (not) have kids. Probably.

It’s interesting, though. I’m sitting here in my jammies, nursing a glass of wine under the golden tint of my Moroccan lantern, and thinking about how we know how bad pop/soda is to us today, but back in 1981, when I was 8 and visiting my aunt in Toronto, we didn’t know. She let me drink several pops each day when I was there over a few weeks, when we knew how bad my kidneys were, and by the time I got back to Vancouver, I’d gained 20 lbs and started becoming lethargic and depressed. Not to mention fat.

Which I am to this day, and have become increasingly more so since beginning this job I’ve been working the last six months and just quit. I’ve gained 7 lbs since my last physical, and probably 17 since my low point this past year. Not cool. Not sitting well with me. Not acceptable. Not going to continue.

I have a plan in place. Something to work towards. Hence quitting the job.

Long story long? Expect a lot of very, very introspective posts in the coming months. When one suppresses themselves for too long, it’s only fitting they should explode under pressure. I guess I’ve just got a lot to say after not saying much worth saying for far too long. Things are about to get interesting. And I’m digging it.

Tonight’s posting is brought to you in part by The North Hollywood Shootout and David Bowie.

< span style="font-style: italic;">*Drug used to fight infections, bronchitis, ear aches, et al.

PS: There is MORE to the story behind why I’ve quit! I’m saving the juiciest for last! Yes, you must STILL turn in! Doh! Tease! Tag! You’re it.

[ed. note: this first appeared on my original-and-still-ticking first blog a couple days ago but given that my traffic there is, like, 12 or something, i thought i’d double my mileage and share here. two-fer!]

so, i’m a big fan of “signs”, eh? i like to look for symbolism in the itty-bitty happenings of this meagre existence of mine as clues of whether i’m headed in the right direction or just totally missing the target. you know, you get fired, probably a sign you’re not working the right job, right? not like it’s fucking rocket science.

every now and then, though, i start opting for the more obscure shit.

like when i had friends over last monday night. i’d taken out the trash earlier and happened to glance over and see a 5-foot tall standing antique wooden floor lamp standing next to a Dumpster in the back alley. ho! nice piece! needs rewiring and the varnish’s patination has bubbled up like it had bad heat exposure once, and the bottom looks like it mighta withstood a flood ‘cos it’s all dark-like (i’m goin’ CSI on a floor lamp… nice!) but it’s still a plum piece. it’s now my winter project. gonna strip it, sand it, and stain it, then rewire it, and THEN i’ll have TWO antique wooden floor lamps. a lucky gal am i.

anyhow. the sign? well, it coincided with when i first really began to realize how unhappy i am at my job (despite enjoying the job itself… kills my will to write, and that i can no longer abide**) and that i kinda needed to walk away from my job.

so i had one really big sign: work called me on my vacation about something. old-fashioned i might be, but methinks vacations are something sacred. then, two, i “see the light”… literally, when i see this lamp in the alley.

personally, i enjoy the thought of it as some kinda signal of where i was going wrong. i’m gonna really savour that memory after i spend the months ahead turning it from a throw-away find into a must-keep treasure.

y’know, now that i’ll start having time on my hands again. loves me a project. 🙂 that it’ll be worth some several hundred dollars once done doesn’t hurt, neither.

PS: on an aside? keep the hourly pay, people. salary’s just another way of saying “yer staying late this week”. i’m just sayin’. hindsight 20/20 and all…

**but, WAIT, there’s more! there’s a juicier bitsy behind my departure, too. saturday. really. at some point. saturday-ish, for sure. it could be a “stay home and nurse a bottle of red” kind of encounter. after all, i’m getting four cavities filled in the afternoon. medicating is a good thing. medicating and writing? priceless.

Labour Day weekend is a very strange time of year for me. Historically, some pretty Big Fucking Deals have come down on the last real weekend of summer. I’ve nearly died twice, for instance. So, you know, I’m sort of emphasizing the word “big” there. It’s like the dog days of summer trip some biological Change Thy Life switch in my dusty old noggin, and it’s amazing the things that have transpired in the early days of September every year or two.

Now, don’t look, but it’s apparently Labour Day weekend once again. Whatever can this mean? Change is afoot? Why, mysteries never cease. Only time will tell, dear minions.

It occurs to me that we’re all one of two kinds of people. Either we believe one can never go home, or we believe one can always go home. Me, I believe the latter. The neighbourhood I grew up in never locked the doors. So while I believe one can always return home, I also believe it’s wise to expect someone might’ve moved the furniture before your return, y’know?

I sorta digress. With any luck, the repercussions of this weekend’s happenings might also be the kind of thing I can look back upon down the road and know was a catalyst for the start of great times. At least, that’s the hope I now have.

Whatever am I talking about, you wonder? Well, like all secret double agents, I’m not yet at liberty to say.

Soon, though, my minions. Very, very soon. After all, I’ve only really made my decision today. Exciting. Exciting!

We left early.

I’m nursing a hell of a sun-burnt face. My sneakers may never be the same again. There’s a story there, and you’ll hear it later.

I return to work Tuesday and have already written a pretty bombshell posting for Tuesday night. I ain’t even risking a teaser on that one. Just get your asses back here and read it on Wednesday, y’hear?

For Monday, I plan to spend some time writing tonight or tomorrow on my evil encounter with the lagoon from hell and the attack of the hermit crabs. Jesus Christ. I nearly had a heart attack I was so freaked out!

I have some pictures, but they fail to communicate the terror. But that’s why I’m a writer, right?

Yes, I shall relay the Attack of the Hermit Crabs to you before Monday. With pictures.

Other than that, the camping trip entailed a great deal of drinking and smoking pot and eating decadently with our new best friends from the UK, Sheffield and Manchester to be exact, who were camping next to us, taking a nature break before heading in town for a wedding. Ironically, it was her birthday, so when in town we got Twinkies and sparklers: the perfect campground birthday cake, for a late-evening celebration. Along with the local herbal remedies, of course.

Yesterday was hangovers and rain showers. We packed up the tent, loaded up the scooters, and saw the skies part into beautiful sunshine right after we gave our spot away. Boy, were we pissed. But we didn’t have rain gear, having packed poorly, and didn’t want to risk a night of deluges when the next ferry was 18 hours away.

There’s also another story in there about the trials and tribulations of my scooter’s air filter and our comedic attempt to improve my pathetic uphill performance, but a last minute wrench attack saved the day and we made the ferry just in time. There’s the punchline for ya, the sex writer who can’t get her scooter up(hill).

All in all, it was a pretty intense camping trip. And let’s hear it for enduring the onslaught of creepy little fuckin’ hermit crabs. Repeat after me: Do NOT go into the lagoon! Check back for all the sordid details!

By the way, for those keeping score at home, having not set a camp fire in a good many years, I was pleased to see I could get a good fire going in less than 60 seconds! 🙂 I was a Girl Scout leader, you know.

I’m giddy! I’m leaving in mere minutes to go camping on one of BC’s Gulf Islands. Sand, smoke, and sea. All good!

I haven’t been camping in 10 or 12 years, and it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long while. Yay Steff.

Anyhow. I’ll be back Saturday night and will spin a tale for all sometime Sunday. Have a terrific weekend, my minions!

Owen Wilson’s recent suicide attempt is really dominating the headlines right now. Too bad for Owen, but great for us.

I’ve suffered depression off and on since my teens. Sometimes it gets really bad and debilitating, but most of the time it’s just omnipresent in the back of my mind, kinda like my social insurance number. God knows I try to fight it, but I know I make my mistakes, too.

One watches these shows like Oprah and sees all the “happiness” experts parading through, telling us that happiness is a choice, and one can be left feeling pretty malfunctioning in a world of efficient and bubbly personas, you know?

Someone like Owen Wilson, who’s perceived to be this laissez-faire, lowkey comedy hottie, goes and tries to kill themself, and, yeah, the world starts to realize that your typical psych case isn’t necessarily always that anti-social asshole who has the corner office on your floor.

Me, I admit my depression history and I see immediate shifts in facial expressions, like I’ve just announced I have a bedwetting problem or something. It’s amazing how quick the shift occurs. The thing is, depression isn’t some icky-gross malady that can turn a stomach. I mean, it’s not some ginormous goiter or oozy weeping ulcer that most people try to avert their eyes from, but it’s still a strangely taboo subject. It’s the kind of thing yuppies still mutter over their martinis. Mm, you heard about his breakdown last year? He spent six weeks rehabbing in Oompa-Loompaville. I bet he’s having cocktail de valium as we gab.

Those of us who’ve been proverbially alone in the dark with depression get how debilitating it can be, how hard it can make day-to-day life. We know how incredibly isolating it is. We’re flooded with endless self-doubt and morose thoughts. Not always, thank god, but there are certainly days and months and even years of bleakness barraging us.

It is what it is, though. We carry on. It’s kind of like suffering from chronic pain. Sooner or later, it just becomes a new normal. Usually you can just get by on it. Every now and then, though, some bit of contrast comes our way and we can compare our lives with those of people who actually seem to enjoy every moment and have carefree existences. Then one of two things happens — either you’re okay with the reality but you commit to changing or at least keep fighting the good fight, or you feel overwhelmed by all you don’t have, all you’ll never feel (or so you think) and you want to just end the suffering now, because if living 10 years longer means living 10 more years like this then why fucking bother, you know?

But that’s the thing. That’s where depression and other disorders win. Fortunately I’ve never felt that way. I have noticed periods where I forget what I love about life. Like these past few months… I feel like I’ve lived in some vapid disconnect. I don’t get how I got here from there, and I’m just a little disoriented. It’s clearing up now for me, but it’s been a troubling year, and nothing like what I expected.

Am I depressed right now? Yeah, a little. But I have an action plan and I have hope and faith, so that’s everything. I also try to be open about it. I haven’t been that open about it this time, because I haven’t been writing, but it’s clicking into place now and I feel like I’m on the right path. Writing shit down: the best therapy ever.

I digress. Owen Wilson’s suddenly-public battle with suicidal tendancies is going to have a huge impact on people being willing to admit more of this. People like Brooke Shields, Halle Berry, who’ve admitted suicidal actions in the past, they’re different. A) They’re women, and gee, aren’t all women overemotional? (I’m parroting stereotypes. Bullshit!) and B) They’re women. Ha. Or they’re your typical angry-at-the-world loner types that seem to be a round peg in a round hole. It was only a matter of time with him, y’know?

Owen Wilson’s this funny, affable, easy-going guy with a penchant for porn and a million creative outlets. Brilliant, rich, single, good-looking… and yet suicidal? This is no Kurt Cobain here. The guy didn’t write a song called Lithium before putting a shotgun in his mouth. He wasn’t married to whack job like Courtney Love. This guy’s got the dream life, and yet he wanted an exit plan.

It’s nice to have the world’s best example of money solves no problems and fame is not an antidote to pain. Everybody hurts. Maybe now we can cut the crap and start talking about something real. Here’s hoping Wilson knows how to turn this into a positive that impacts others. Here’s hoping we all start dialoguing a little more about what’s beneath the surface.

Last November, I was in a difficult place. My dad was, for all we knew, dying in the hospital and nothing in my life was certain. I got the news about my father right after running a Craigslist personals ad, and I was going to just turf all the respective “applicants” when I thought it might be nice to get my head off my life and go on a coffee date.

So, I made date plans with this one guy who seemed kinda like my type. Baby-face-ish, cool but not, seemed sympathetic and open about himself. We decided to rendezvous at a downtown coffee place, close to all the shops and places to wander.

I knew I’d return to the hospital and my reality the next day, but I thought I might just have a nice conversation, and maybe that’d make all the difference, you know?

I got there right on time to find my date seated with a hot drink for me. Nice touch (but if I’d been even a couple minutes later, it’d have been cold and awkwardness would’ve ruled the evening, so maybe not a wise plan, the ordering of a hot bevvy for a not-yet-arrived date). Too bad he looked about 15 years older than his photo (airbrushed, obviously) revealed.

We did the requisite small talk and discussed how fortunate he was to make a living from photography. After all, I really admire anyone who can make a living off their loves.

“So, how do you do it?” I asked.

“Oh,” he said, beginning to turn a little pink, “I just lucked into a really good social network and now it’s mostly word of mouth.”

I remember my petty internal dialogue, along the lines of “Mmf, some people have all the luck.”

Sure enough, the guy’s cellphone then rings. He looks at it, pockets it again, but conversation comes to a standstill with the interruption. A couple minutes pass and we’re only just getting chatty again when the phone rings once more. Now, anyone who knows me knows I think cellphones are rude in almost any setting, but DEFINITELY are beyond rude on a first date. I suspect my face conveyed this line of thought.

“Geez, sorry,” he mutters. “A friend of mine… my ex, actually– is out of town and I’m handling her business calls this weekend.”

“Oh. Maybe having coffee was a bad plan this weekend, then?”

“Well, no, I kinda always handle some of her calls, so… I’m kinda always getting lots of calls after hours. I’m just getting a little more than usual this weekend.”

“Ah. And what kind of business is it that you get calls for work on Saturday night?”

He started skirting the issue, so I pressed for more information.

“Um. Well. She’s an escort.” Insert amused pause here. “She owns an agency, actually.”

“And you just take calls?”

“Well, I’m kinda the odd job guy, too.”

“What kind of “odd jobs” does one do in an escort agency?”

Needless to say, he began ducking questions an awful lot while fidgeting with packets of sugar. He tried to explain that sometimes there might be legal issues, or safety concerns, and any number of other things that might come up during a routine week handling the escort agency.

Now, I have no issues with anyone working in the sex trade, but I just choose not to date them. This guy put himself out there as a “photographer”, but it turns out he was doing the pretty-much-porn shots of the escorts for their marketing materials and websites. Okay, whatever, that’s fine.

Then it turns out he’s officially an “appointment maker” for an escort agency. Well, all right. The trouble is, this guy just kept downplaying his roles. He tried to make it seem like he was a cog on a wheel, and nothing more.

That, however, was nothing further from the truth. All of a sudden, it went from him pretending he was just answering calls on this one weekend to him revealing that he was working almost full-time for the escort agency as a “liason” or something.

Our date came to a fast and furious end in the bookstore when I seized the opportunity to make a rather pointed and provocative remark about a book on the sociology of porn. I commented that although I was a big fan of personal freedoms and access to anything your little heart desires, that I thought porn might be having negative effects on relationships today, just thanks to the endless stereotypes of how sex should be done, etc. I wanted a little more creativity and felt a lot of class was lacking, and that sex was more than just action, and then there was the issue of redundant stereotypes and all…

…needless to say, we made our separate ways pretty quickly, our Saturday night date coming to a screeching halt at all of 7pm.

But that’s not the end of the story. How it turns out is, about three weeks later, I was working on a documentary on Vancouver’s sex trade at my former job in the film industry. Guess who was in the show? My would-be date. Turns out he was the guy accompanying escorts to doctors’ offices for tests, helping them with visas, and so forth. The dude was a major player in the documentary, and clearly in the local industry as a whole.

Now, the funny thing was, the guy seemed like a really great guy. Never judged the escorts or their actions, always was there to help in any way. Admirable, that. The trouble is, when you choose to live your life in a more questionable realm than others might dwell in, you more or less have to deal with the consequences of your choices. This guy, unfortunately, wanted to date “regular” girls, but everything about his life was anything but regular.

Someone like me, from the more vanilla side of the road, is probably never going to hook up with a guy like that. Why? Because while I might be a good little girl who likes to play a little less than cleanly, I’ve never engaged in risky behaviour, and no matter how “safe” sex can theoretically be, statistics aren’t perfect and anomalies happen far too often. I’m not going to get involved with someone who’s had a far riskier past than I have. Why up the odds against me? Fate will have a hand in my life without me giving it easier access to my weaknesses, right?

Does that make me narrow-minded? I dunno. It’s a good question, isn’t it? Does it make me guilty of believing stereotypes? Probably. But then it’s likely an Ockham’s Razor argument — the simplest explanation is likely the best, don’t you think? He’s lived a risky life, lives in a risky part of society, ergo he is a risk, right?

It’s difficult, the negotiating of the seas of safe sex. Who’s more likely to be a danger to you, and why? When is a risk too great to be taken? Does one’s behaviour reflect their morals, or are actions too often associated with morality?

It’s interesting. I’ve been asking these questions of myself for a while now, and plan to write a great deal on this in the coming months… how we are perceived versus who we actually are, and the prices we might pay for perceptions.

But why don’t you weigh in? What are your thoughts?

Ed. note: I’ve never been back in touch with this guy. Do I feel bad about it? Nah. We both knew where we stood that night. The difference is, I was honest from the get-go about who I am, while he tried to skate around anything to do with who he was. That alone went against everything I was looking for in someone. If you can’t own up to who you are and what you do, maybe it’s time to question your actions. If you can’t believe in yourself, who else can? But, yeah, there are also the judgmental assholes out there who’ll negate you at every turn, no matter how upstanding you might be.

Hey, good people. I’m one day away from 10 days off, and boy am I excited. I have a lot planned for my time off, but mostly I just intend to do What I Want To Do. A lot’s rushing through my head, and I can tell you about none of it right now, but hopefully soon I can share.

In the meantime, I’m making notes about things I want to write about. Lately I’ve been so overtired that I just don’t have the creativity to sit down and write — I was pretty sick last week and was hangin’ on by a thread. This week I’m just Getting Shit Done so I can relax when I’m off.

I was reading the news this morning, though, and saw a great story on the BBC. An American study, it seems, says that more than half the people surveyed in a large poll were still getting laid into their 70s, and almost 30% of people polled still had an active sex life in their 80s.

Which has someone like me, whose sex life has recently become the Sahara, thinking there’s hope for the future. (Snicker.)

First on tap for the next week are some stories about the absolutely horribly weird mix of first dates I’ve had in the last year. Ever get the sense that the universe has you perma-starring on candid camera? Wait’ll you hear about the date I had with Pimp Man. That’s one for the record books.

But I’ve been holding back A LOT about my life for the last year and now I say fuck it. I’m gonna tell you just how last year’s relationship came apart, more of the details, I’m gonna revisit some of the happenings and put my “older, wiser” spin on things. I’m over the sense of being nice to others and keeping things private right now. You get involved with a writer, a writer who openly admits to having a sex blog, well, you gotta expect some divulging, eh?

So, stay tuned. I’m challenging myself to write every day on my holiday. That starts Saturday. Thanks for bearing with me. 🙂

Welcome to autumn, Vancouver style. Bah. We’ve had a pretty mixed bag summer here on the Weird Coast. Fortunately a heat wave is rumoured for next week, and that’s the start of my time off.

I’ve been working hard this week and today I’ve settled into Chill Mode after getting up and cleaning the pad like a busy little beaver (ahem) this morning. Yes, we still use that phrase here in Canada.

The air does, however, have a hint of autumn on it. Perhaps it’s just that I should take the garbage out and there’s a breeze. Hmm.

I had a nice day yesterday, though, and meant to write about it, but I got a little involved in watching that sadly disappointing Peter Jackson version of King Kong. (Although I did like the overplayed love affair between the beauty and the beast, but I’ve always been a bit of a sap.)

I headed out to the public market yesterday and got myself a big fat chicken to roast and decided it was time to finally try some figs. Bought a couple, and tonight I’ll have my first ever fresh figs. Something tells me Fig Newton’s got nothing on the real deal. I also bought some purple peppers I plan to serve myself in a balsamic crema with fresh capari tomatoes and fresh torn bocconcini with some slivers of shallot.

It sounds indulgent, doesn’t it? But it takes all of about five or so minutes. I’ll also make a nice pastry-crusted roasted chicken, brocolli and peppers bake. It’ll be the first time I’ve really cooked nicely for myself in quite some time.

It’s easy to start coasting through life when you’re single. That has been the case with me for a while now. I’ve been in a rut, such as the one I wrote about a week or two ago. I’m content but not, y’know? I’ve grown complacent. I take the slightly easier way out. I forget to plan interesting and creative new dishes for dinner, and I just get by.

The funny thing is, if I’m cooking really nice, healthy, fresh but indulgent “slow” food for myself, I feel a whole lot less of that lack you get sometimes, being single. Yeah, sure, it’s nice to cook for other people, but who says saving your A game just for them makes any sense at all? Why not take the time to makes yourself a couple antipastis to enjoy with a glass of wine?

I more or less did that last night when I roasted my bird. Threw some fingerling potatoes in with the bird halfway through, they came out caramelized and popping with nice fluffy insides. Some grilled asparagus, parmesan toast, and a tomato-bocconcini salad. After a week of working real hard, it felt great to stay in and dote on myself on a Saturday night. I’ll do the same again tonight, but with the house all clean, I can take an evening stroll and people watch a while.

I’ll have another gruelling week this week, ‘cos I have a lot of projects to wrap up before I take my 10-day break from work. I have a lot of “nature” plans during my 10 days off — I’ll be camping, catching up with copious friends, hiking, cycling the city, and packing a whole lot of summer into 10 short days. It’ll do me a world of good. I’m sure to have much to report.