I’ve failed repeatedly to remember today’s (and therefore yesterday’s) date; I need to try harder, because someday my kids are going to have to memorize one of them for history class. October 26, 2004. The Knesset, amid epithets and protests, voted to withdraw Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip.
Category: Landmarks
Maria and I went to San Francisco last weekend, and it was pretty great. We left very early Saturday morning and got back very late Monday night, and although we unfortunately missed hanging out with Kris, we did get to play games and bum around with Leonard and Sumana a lot.
It was like every few hours we gained a new and spectacular privilege: aside from Leonard’s food, to which I’ll get in a moment, we discovered the mafia geese of Fairyland; we gained admittance to the residence of Kevin (more on this soon too); we got a quick-but-personal tour of Berkeley; we spent big wads of money at Games of Berkeley; and we played arcade games both vintage and new. Hell, Maria attended the national American Academy of Pediatrics conference practically by accident, and I got to have one of the first looks at Leonard’s newest awesome secret project (so awesome, he got banned from the API of at least one site!). It was that kind of weekend.
Now, Leonard’s food. It should be sufficient to say that Leonard’s fondue made me–the guy who hates cheese–like fondue, but I’m going to say more. We also got to eat his first-ever attempt at home fries, which were unfairly perfect, and his first-ever attempt at pie ice cream, which was also pretty freaking great. Leonard’s food is world peace. Leonard’s food is the answer.
As for Kevin’s house: when Ian and I were younger, we had on our 386 Magnavox computer a program called Floorplan Plus. Because we were dorks–huge dorks, the budding dorks of legend–we spent hours on that thing, designing about a million floor plans so that both of us could completely fail to go into architecture.
My houses were silly, but I always tried to make them sensible. Ian, on the other hand, was constantly reinventing a place he called Jamhouse. You can pretty much imagine what it was like: the perfect residence, as envisioned by a ten-year-old boy. And Kevin’s house is that house, but with a better sound system and more art. It is my future house’s role model.
I need to say something about Sumana too, because she was a major part of the weekend and I’ve barely mentioned her. We stopped for lunch in Berkeley at De La Paz; it was warm and we’d already walked a lot, and Maria (who is hypoglycemic) was getting kind of dizzy. Sumana got up, ostensibly to go to the bathroom, but first snuck over to the bar to have the lone waiter express-deliver a Coke to replenish her blood sugar. That is the kind of friend Sumana is.
Before February of this year I’d never been west of Minnesota, and now I’ve been to California three times in eight months. Two-thirds of that is due entirely to Leonard and Sumana, whose hospitality and thoughtfulness are boundless and unfailing.
I quit my improv troupe the weekend before last. I was kind of wary about the whole thing when I joined, late last summer; it turned out that everyone in the group at the time was awesome and brilliant, and I’m glad I spent this something-over-a-year working with them. Unfortunately, almost all of the original seven have left–Greg got promoted to Project Improv, then Leesha quit, then Evan quit, then Rebecca moved to Chicago. Since then it’s really just been me, Nicole and the new kids. When I called Nicole–long the de facto troupe leader–to check on rehearsal status and she told me she’d quit, I knew it was over. As much as I enjoy our teacher Ken’s company, there was no longer any reason for me to stay.
I’ve been trying to get ahold of Ken and inform him of this, but Ken has a permanent residence the way some people have headaches. I never had any real desire to perform with the troupe, so the loss of those opportunities doesn’t impact me, but I did enjoy working with those guys; I’m more creative and funnier as a result of that work.
There’s always the tantalizing possibility of Waterfront Frisbee Wednesdays, too, if we ever get six people together for that again. That’s really the last point of contact I have with my Street Legal people, and I don’t want to lose it.
I realize that technically there are fractions of days but I don’t care
Today NewsBruiser tells me that Anacrusis has 261 entries. That’s not a particularly impressive or symbolic number, but it’s still a big deal, because the idea behind Anacrusis is to write and post a story every weekday. There are (two times fifty-two) 104 weekend days in a year, and 365 – 104 = 261. I have an official year’s worth of Anacrusis, and if all goes well, September 13th should be the anniversary for at least the next few years (until it ends up falling on a weekend too).
I actually posted the very first story on July 18, 2003, but then I missed all of September due to webhost issues and skipped a couple more weeks here and there, too, because nobody was reading it and it didn’t matter. I’m better about that now. I figure a couple more years of this, and I should have something worthwhile.
- Gave away what, 60 copies of HONOR? Something like that. Two of them I traded for other ashcans (Yeperynye and The Last Sane Cowgirl), which I totally count as sales. And every copy given away was to somebody whose work I (or Will or Stephen) really respect, which is a worthwhile transaction, in my opinion.
- Left my hat at Preview Night. Never got it back.
- Got to meet a lot of cool people from the online.
- Cool people I met from the online all had a curious need to run off to important, distant engagements within seconds of meeting me. Either I smell bad or I’m Creepy Interweb Fan, or (probably) both.
- Had a really good time with Monica, Will, Stephen and Maria. And Stephen’s lady Erin, at whose residence we crashed, is maybe the coolest person on the whole planet.
- Ran out of plane-ticket money and was unable to visit Leonard and Sumana. That was a pretty stupid mistake, and I feel really bad about it. Hopefully, a post-student-loan trip is in the works.
- Tycho and Gabe were the coolest, most professional people at the whole freaking Con.
- Speaking of Tycho and Gabe, I had one of the world’s most random encounters: passing by their booth, I recognized Paul Mattingly, a great guy who was in Richmond Children’s Theatre with me a billion years ago and who now works as a Klingon and Second City understudy (!) in Vegas. I literally hadn’t seen him in over a decade. He even has a site, The Famous Paul, though I understand that’s mostly a placeholder for the moment.
- Getting to California by train was interesting, right enough, and I’m glad we tried it. but the people who work for Amtrak seem unhappy and unhelpful and it’s very bumpy. I think I’ll pretty much be flying from here on out.
- I thought about taking a whole bunch of stuff to get signed, but eventually decided against it. I had a better idea. Thanks to the unlined pocket Moleskine my family got me for my birthday, I now possess what can only be referred to as
The Greatest SKETCHBOOK
Ever In The History Of Time
which basically means I win.
I managed to take a whole roll of film, which is good, considering I frequently manage to wish I had a camera while holding one. Probably more updates after I get that developed, but considering I still haven’t posted the pics from my San Francisco trip in February, one shouldn’t hold one’s breath.
In two days we’ll be on our way to Alton, and thence to California; I’ll finally be meeting Stephen and Erin and Kris, and a great host of other humans, not to mention buying a great many new comics. And I’ll get to see Leonard and Sumana again! And it’ll be my first cross-country trip on a train! I EXPLODE WITH AWESOMENESS!
It’s strange to think that we’ve been planning this for almost an entire year; I was investigating possible trip companions and talking about prices with Stephen before the last Comic Con was over. My enthusiasm for the trip has yet to diminish even a whit, despite the fact that I’m desperately behind on… The Secret Project.
Which Will already talked about, so I guess I can too. He, Lisa, Stephen and I are putting together an ashcan comic to sell to or throw at Con attendees–something we’ve also been planning for a long time. It’s only natural that I’m not done yet, and will probably be up all night tonight finishing my section. We investigated printing prices (Kinko’s, et cetera), then ended up buying a totally sweet laser printer and an extra high-capacity cartridge for less than it would have cost to get it done at a shop. We’re going to bind it ourselves and sell it cheap, and I’ll probably put at least my section up on this “web site” once I get back and have time. I’m drawing my part based on Stephen’s script, which is a new and interesting experience for me, and I hope I get it right.
Possibly the only entry that falls under “Food” and “Landmarks”
There’s a scene in The Matrix where Cypher discusses the price of his betrayal with Agent Smith in a fancy restaurant, over some steak. That steak is presumably the ideal steak, the most perfect combination of taste and texture that a neural implant can render. It certainly looks (and sounds) like it onscreen. Whenever I think about that scene or watch the movie, I usually get a craving for dead cow, to which even the finest Applebee’s cut inevitably fails to live up.
Last night, Maria took me to the Mayan Gypsy on Market Street. I ordered the Tierra y Mar, medium rare. And it was that steak.
I don’t think I can ever go to another restaurant again.
Last night I made fried tofu for the Tuesday Night Ballers–the first time I’ve had it in many years, and the first time I’ve made it myself. They liked it, or pretended to, and I was glad it turned out the way I remembered it. The smell of making it was a pretty powerful memory trigger.
I ate bacon only rarely until I was in my teens; instead, we always had fried tofu as our bacon substitute, whether on salads, in sandwiches or solo for breakfast. It works very well in each of those roles, but I have no idea what made my parents decide that it was a bacon substitute, because it tastes nothing like bacon (in fact, it tastes like nothing else of which I know). They’re both flat and fried, though, I guess.
Here’s the recipe. I’m calling it this because my mom’s maiden name is Dixon, and that side of the family comprises the only other people I know who make it.
Dixon Family Fried Tofu
- Some Tamari Sauce (similar to soy sauce, but different; look in Asian groceries or health food stores)
- Some Brewer’s Yeast (not regular yeast; check the same health food stores)
- A Hunk of Firm Tofu
- Maybe Some Vegetable Oil
Get out three plates. Cover one with a puddle of tamari and another with a layer of brewer’s yeast. Drain the tofu and place the hunk on the third plate.
Cut slices of the tofu widthwise, as if it were a loaf of bread. Be gentle but firm, so the tofu doesn’t disintegrate, and try to get each slice a little less than a quarter of an inch thick. You probably have enough tamari and yeast to fry the whole block if you want, so cut off as many slices as you plan on eating; two or three is a good for a sandwich or a breakfast side, and one or two is enough to crumble over an individual salad.
Heat up a skillet or a frying pan. You can heat a little of that vegetable oil in there too, if you want–no more than a teaspoon. You can fry without the oil, but it does distribute the heat better than the tamari, so you’re less likely to wind up with little black spots.
Lay each slice flat in the tamari; turn it over several times so it’s covered well, but you don’t have to marinade it. You just want it wet.
Lay those slices in the brewer’s yeast, like you’re breading them (because you are). Do this quickly but well, because the yeast will absorb the sauce and fall off the tofu in clumps if you wait around.
Lay carefully in the skillet and fry until browned. Flip several times to avoid scorching, especially if you’re not using oil, but be careful to avoid the aforementioned clumping problem.
You’ll probably have to add more brewer’s yeast, because it tends to soak up drops of tamari and solidify so it won’t stick to the tofu. Be liberal with both sauce and yeast–they’re providing the flavor. One hunk of tofu serves three to four.