Les Croissants!

Tonight I was seized by the sudden urge to bake something.  Consulting my Pinterest board that tells me all about the things that I want to learn how to make, bake, and cook, I settled on chocolate croissants.

This necessitated a trip to the local grocery store, Quality Foods, to fetch crescent rolls, chocolate chips, and cheese and salsa.  Just kidding, the cheese and salsa are for something else, but who knows, chocolate and just about everything tastes good, so maybe chips, chocolate, and salsa might be kinda neat.  I also got to stop in at Shopko to get a cookie sheet because I should have one anyway.

I didn't quite follow all the instructions, but they did turn out!

Just look how pretty they are!

These are Brianna-made croissants!

This is really quite exciting because now I have something delicious to eat for breakfast for the next week.  Chocolate croissants and tea, it's going to be absolutely delightful, that's for sure!  And I'm so proud that I didn't burn the croissants or the building!  YEAH!

“Remember the days when you let your child have some chocolate if he finished his cereal? Now, chocolate is one of the cereals.” 

- Robert Orben

Apology Post

I feel like I should probably apologize because my brain is not with me.  In fact, I just don't really feel creative today, but I'm bouncy and downright pleased with myself.  Not really sure why though, I've got a lot of ideas bouncing around in my head, but none of them want to splat onto paper.  After cranking out this post, I'm off to watch the Doctor Who movie, because I hear it's full of wonderful ridiculousness.

Point being, I'm sorry.  I'm really sorry that I didn't write a legendary poem, I'm sorry that I spent my time at work writing a letter that I'll never send, I'm sorry that I came home and ate pasta with enough garlic to choke a horse, and I'm sorry that I spent more time on the phone than effort on this poem.

So these are random snippets of things that I wrote while I was at my internship.  Shhhh...

April 10, 2013

One in two kissers agree
that you are superb,
a real ace.
Prince Charming, corpse kisser,
ain't got nothing on you.


My imagination ran away
with me,
grabbing my hand
in one sweaty palm
and tugging me
down an alley.
It wanted to see
where the betrayers live,
the ones who expect much
and doublecross
the hearts of friends.

In other news, my forays into cooking have proved pretty successful.  I haven't died from undercooked chicken, and I even managed to make a few things that were delicious on purpose, though I couldn't really tell you what I did different from the times that they didn't turn out delicious.  I made chicken tikka masala because I had a craving for it, avocado pasta-ness (which is essentially guacamole as pasta sauce) because I love avocados with all my heart and soul, and then there was the pork fried rice that I made tonight with some leftovers.  Unfortunately there were no mushrooms, so I couldn't use those.  But on the bright side, there were onions, so now I can repel any intruders upon my quiet evening at home.

"Everything you can imagine is real."

- Pablo Picasso

Virgo

I'm not really sure what I'm doing with this poem challenge.  I feel like I probably shouldn't write about the zodiac signs on a whole because that's going to be full of horrible generalizations that no one will like.  And I'm not sure how I can do something from the perspective of the sign, unless...my creativity died.

Or I'm just lazy.

Let's go with lazy, because I'm not sure how or where I could bury my creativity if it really passed on.

Okay.  But typically there's a list of famous people that go along with the sign.  New idea, I'll write something from their perspective, but slant it with the zodiac.  Or from the perspective of a constellation.  That might be cool.  Or maybe from the perspective of the "ruling planet," or one of the lucky numbers.  I suddenly feel like I might have a better handle on this now.

So I apologize for the craziness that is the Virgo poem and how it's not even a little finished (I promise that one day it will be better and finished), but here we go.

April 5, 2013

Everyone begins as Virgo,
the late summer, early autumn,
awkward in-betweeners
grabbing on to the hem of chaos
and trying to fold it up neatly.
Holding a magnifying glass
over the seams
to see if the threads match.
And if they don't,
someone will be notified.

On another note that's completely unrelated to poetry, I cooked food yesterday.  Not only did I cook food, but it was delicious.  And I made it that way on purpose.  I'm not sure how it happened, but I'd like to thank all the kitchen gods and the gods of fire for blessing me and not burning down the house.  It'd be really unfortunate if my parents came home to a pile of ash and a note saying, "Sorry, I was making dinner..."  Oh, and the chicken cooked all the way through, so I didn't die.

Note to self:  don't watch half a dozen vlogbrothers videos before writing a blog post or you'll be thinking at the speed and tone of John Green's speaking voice.

"Once a Virgo doesn't like you, they probably won't ever like you again."

- Unknown

Something to Blog About

Please someone give me something to blog about.

I realized fairly recently that the majority of my posts about my personal life are whiney and boring.  Well, maybe they're boring, I'm entertained by the way that I ramble, but maybe I'm the only one who's entertained.  My life is fairly mundane.  My friend, Claire, asked me what I do in the morning around nine, and I couldn't even really tell her that I have a routine because...I don't.  Which is a little depressing, but it's okay because maybe one of these days I'll be just waking up at nine and getting ready to prepare my famous French toast.  I can look forward to this hypothetical possibility.

Poem-A-Day March's challenge is "drunken poetry" given to me by my mother, which was surprising.  Especially since the first thing you think of when you think "drunken poetry" is "get drunk and then write a bunch of poetry."  I did this on a team with two of my friends once, and some really weird stuff came out of it (we passed around a piece of paper and each wrote a line).  But I've chosen to interpret this challenge a bit more liberally than that first narrow assumption.  I've written about a poet being too hungover to write poetry at all, and about a drunk poem.  Get it?  Because it's drunken poetry.  Sometimes I'm clever.  I'm not sure what else I'm going to write about it quite yet, but I may revisit my favorite Charles Baudelaire poem, "Enivrez-vous."  Because it's lovely.

I'm also working on things for Here's the Story, which is basically a dream come true, but I've heard word that there may be more interns to work with.  This tentative announcement makes me feel like an only child waiting for the inevitable arrival of a new sibling.  I already feel jealous of these new children and apprehensive that I will no longer be "the favorite."  Then again I also feel like I can easily make friends with these potential new folks because having friends is nice.  So I'm torn.  As usual.

My horoscope told me this morning that I would be making a big time decision about my life soon.  I can't even begin to imagine what kind of decision that would be because I don't really have any decisions to be making that are more dramatic than what I want to eat for breakfast in the morning or where I want to curl up to read my book in the evening.  But said horoscope also informed me that important people in my life would tell me that I was making the wrong decision, but that I should follow my intuition.  This doesn't surprise me in the least because typically the people in my life tend to be know-it-alls.  Just a little bit.  Well meaning lovely know-it-alls who I love.  They're endearing, and I hope they don't mind if I ignore them.

I had two phone interviews at the end of last week, and I'm really excited about the one that I had on Friday because I think I did fairly well.  Plus it's for a place that I would definitely enjoy working at.  They even told me to have a good weekend and laughed when I apologized for being incoherent.  I really hope they were laughing with me and not at me...but they were so nice I couldn't imagine them jeering at me.

And my brother's coming home for spring break on Friday.  This is particularly exciting because it means that for a week, I won't be an only child.  I've missed him.  And even though we're not really going to hang out, per say, it'll be good to see him.  I only hope he doesn't hate me for evicting him from his room.  We're crossing our fingers that he doesn't hate me too much.  Yeah...

I tried baking Irish soda bread last night.  I sliced part of it today, and I suspect that I worked the dough too much because it's kinda lumpy and weird looking, but you know, I'm sure it tastes fine.  I'm beginning to strongly suspect that I can't cook or bake anything delicious on purpose because of the muffins I made last month and the soda bread this month...both seem pretty bland and boring.  But maybe a little jelly will make the bread better.  This is one of my first forays into the domestic, and I really don't want my mother to think that she failed me somehow and that I'll starve if I ever move out.

And then there's the whole thing that I said I would start working out at some point.  Maybe I should have made that my Lenten promise instead of blogging everyday.  If only I had thought of that!  I keep saying that I'll go to the library and pick up a yoga DVD or something, but I keep forgetting.  Or getting distracted by other things like the stack of grant writing books that I'm cradling in my arms (because I figure if I can learn how to write grants, I'll be more marketable as a writer).

I'm reading a book that my grandpa lent me, which was really sweet, but I feel bad because I definitely fell asleep when I was reading it the other day.  Oops.  It's going to be a murder mystery, I believe.  It's called V Is for Vengeance.  And I do like the Kinsey character, but I'm thinking I need to get to know her a bit more before I get into the book.  I'm just reading a lot of books, actually.  I have a bad habit of sticking bookmarks into half a dozen books and then reading them in a circle of sorts.  So there's that one, Red Seas under Red Skies, and a couple grant writing books.  Then there are the ones that I started before the Disney College Program...and I'm not even sure where those are because they got put away somewhere.  Maybe in the dresser that's holding more books than clothes...hm...

So yeah, can someone just give me something to blog about?  Thanks.

"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.  That myth is more potent than history.  That dreams are more powerful than facts.  That hope always triumphs over experience.  That laughter is the only cure for grief.  And I believe that love is stronger than death."

- Robert Fulghum

A Letter to French Fries

Dear French Fries,

It's been a long time, but I'm sure you remember me.  My name's Brianna, and I'm the blonde girl with the glasses who gets random cravings for you.

Last night, the question was posed, "Where do you want to eat?"  My first answer was the cheeky answer that I always give because that's the type of person I am, "Preferably somewhere with food.  Delicious food."  And then I realized, "I have the weirdest cravings for French fries, so can we go somewhere that will give me fries?"

You are delicious.  I love when you're crispy on the outside and soft on the inside and golden.  Needless to say, I successfully acquired a plate of French fries along with my bacon cheeseburger because I am the most healthy person in the history of the world.  And naturally, I ate all of the fries first.

Can we talk about one thing that I'm not a fan of?  Why is it that you never taste as delicious when you're leftover?  And cold French fries don't taste particularly good either.  Is it because you've just renounced all your deliciousness once you spend a night in the fridge?  As an act of rebellion, do you perhaps say, "Too bad, fry-eater, we're not going to be as delicious the next day!" and then toss off the coat of tastiness?  I'm not really sure how that would work literally, but I'm sure you can probably find a way what with your wily temptations that get me to eat you in the first place.

Lucky for you, I've discovered that my downfall with second day French fries is warming them up in the microwave because that makes them soggy.  I've learned only now that if you warm up French fries in a toaster oven, they're still crispy.  Unfortunately, I don't own a toaster oven, so that leaves me to consume a quarter of my burger and the entire plate of fries when I go out.  Which is something I'm totally okay with, don't get me wrong.

Then I found this on my Pinterest...it was there all along!

Source: buzzfeed.com via Brianna on Pinterest

I highly doubt that any "healthy alternatives" will turn me off of plain old delicious and fatty potato French fries, but it definitely sounds like an endeavor that will be fun to experiment with, and it'll definitely give me something to do.

I love you, French fries.  Let's see if there are other versions of you that are even more delicious.

Cheers,
Brianna

"Blood may be thicker than water, but it's certainly not as thick as ketchup.  Nor does it go as well with French fries."

- Jarod Kintz