Why so fabulous?

Can you hear that sweet music?

The pictures are somewhat incomplete, as the camera was not broken out until a thin portion of the evening and many who attended the unsubbing of the lair were undocumented. Their anonymity is for their own benefit, and the benefit of their evil works.

The gang is all here, and then some:

There was music:

And there was dancing:

Young Miss Prim was unamused:

Special guest appearance by young Caius:

Noms were provided, but pictures of the actual noms did not do justice. Suffice to say that the chicken ceviche is now on my permanent recipe list, mango salsa is ALWAYS delicious, and shrimp scampi is divine. A Toast to good food:

On tap:

And the back massage fairy was floating around:


Photos provided by Miss Kayla, who happened to be on the wrong(right?) side of the camera at all times.

Tell Yourself Everything Is Alright

Been 9:15 For Hours

Only Counting the Blue Ones

The Horizon is Burning

A Deal With God.

Home Improvement...

Home improvement is difficult for me, because stud finders go off
constantly whenever I pick them up.

The Big Day

Wine, food, music, lots of great company. Today is going to be huge. There should be friends coming and going in and out of the house from breakfast through super late. I hope I made enough dark chocolate pudding for everyone:


16 egg yolks for the double batch for the cups means I'm going to have some monster egg white omelets for breakfast for whoever wants them. I am loaded with wine and beer, chicken, shrimp, garlic, bacon, and butter. Maybe I could use some more cheese... I only just finished making the pudding about half an hour ago. I didn't start till a little before midnight. I had an amazing nap after work today. Anyway, it was fast, and fun, and lots of bowls were licked and sweet excess savored, and I am ready for far more cooking tomorrow. I just wanted the pudding to have overnight to set.

It has been an amazing week of building things, playing with toys, reading, writing, and listening to music.

The Window Pain

Windows make the world
Everything is divided by glass
So fragile and defenseless
It stands like a wall
We can see what we want
But cannot have
What makes this prison so strong
Worse than bars of iron
I dare not shatter my bonds
Dare not.....
Dare not....
Dare not...
Dared not.
If we break the glass
We break the world
Shatter it bit by bit
Dared not.
I dare.

Clever

Things People Say

Frequently I stumble along and hear this or that. Just listening a bit, and sometimes reading, and sometimes, the this or that seems incredibly profound, and worth repeating again and again. Sometimes when you catch hold of a truth you ache so deeply to whisper it along that the compulsion hardly seems to originate within you.

"For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul." - Judy Garland

Passion transcends flesh, I think. To elicit this feeling in someone else, to interact with them in such a way that they sense you are interacting with something under their skin, their heart or their soul, and when you look at them, make them feel like you are looking behind their eyes. That feeling of transparency is... so complex.

"The soul's joy lies in doing." -Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Maybe this is important. Do people want parity? I don't think so. I think satisfaction must be entirely gained through the joy of mere existence, in doing whatever we do.



"Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions." - Edgar Cayce

Kahlil Gibran on Love

Do you think there is some place we can go where we can be ourselves at least part of the time?

I like hiding things, all kinds of things, all kinds of places. Would I want to be myself? Can you find the hidden music?

Plug me in, beautiful, hear my unsaid words, read my mind, and share a meal with me, when you break bread, you... you what?

I don't think you can hear the music that I do, but I want to believe that it is in your heart.

I wonder what you get for 1000 origami flowers. There are always flowers for you here.

Happy Valentines Day

"And now, this is the sweetest and most glorious day that ever my eyes did see."

Amazing Friday, Amazing Saturday

Friday was really, really good. I found my mailbox for the very first
time, which was incredibly cool. Then I took care of all my change of
addresses... Drivers License, car note, netflix, etc. After getting
all of that done(Stuff I couldn't do till after I had keys to the
mailbox), I felt really accomplished, but I still went on to cook
dinner, have company over, and finish homework. Played guitar a lot,
learned some riffs from Silverchair's Tomorrow. Not on my list of
amazing songs, but it's good for practicing switching between
strumming chords and playing riffs and notes.

I'm at a point where it's hard for me to find really beautiful songs
that are right at my difficulty level to play well and improve at. I
feel the happiest and most accomplished when I am getting things done,
taking care of responsibilities, etc. Maybe it's from all the years
when I was so stuck in life that it was a rare day that I would get
something really important taken done. This whole project has been
incredibly rewarding, from beginning to end a surprising success.

Robert Schuller once asked, "What would you attempt if you knew you
could not fail?" Every task and decision and adventure must be
undertook with this as a basic assumption. A different approach must
be taken to life that assumes that passion and desire and
determination are the fundamental driving forces of any endeavor. What
is failure? How do you know when it's happened? Robert Schuller's
question seems at once to miss something incredible, while at the same
time highlighting every facet of it. Is he leading everyone who reads
that question so this miraculous destination of understanding this
view of success, failure, motivation and its relationship to ambition?

Saturday actually started pretty lousy. The middle party at Chefs 2b
cancelled, so I was there all day long but only did 2 parties, both of
which were messy and busy and a lot of work, but neither tipped. But,
I got an amazing recipe for lobster bisque, one of my favorite soups
ever. After that, I finished my homework for the weekend, got a test
done and turned in. Then, my dad called and said that they definitely
planned on coming over for dinner. I got to work immediately, produced
a delicious rich shrimp scampy and a side of oven roasted garlic
rosemary potatoes, onions, and red peppers in an hour and a half, just
as they were getting to my house. Shared a wonderful meal and a bottle
of wine with both of them, they brought the wine, and a
congratulations card and told me that they had both gotten raises, and
bonuses, and on top of all of that, that Marry Ellen had even gotten a
promotion. I was so happy for them. We watched Cloudy With a Chance of
Meatballs together and they also brought a lamp that my Aunt Karen
gave me but I had forgotten at their house. I had the perfect place
for it, it's a really cool looking lamp.

I have more work at Chefs 2b today. Maybe it's going to be another
really good day? I'm going to start it off with a movie before work.