Moxie

Sick

I am just so sick about the murder of Dr. Tiller. In church. I can't even comprehend it, except to say that terrorists are not mentally or spiritually healthy.

I am pro-choice. I am a Christian. And I have had many discussions with fellow Christians about being "pro-life" and "pro-choice," and every single time we both cite the same reasons for arriving at different conclusions. That's one of the beauties and horrors of being a Christian--God gives us brains and free will and gives us clues that we have to interpret on our own. Even His edicts are still clues. To me, "Love one another" means "Take care of women--save their lives if continuing to carry a baby would kill them, in any way." To others, "Love one another" means "Work to make sure all conceptions result in live births." Even though that's not where I arrive, I can see how they get there. I know at least some of the people I've discussed this with feel the same about my conclusion.

But here's the thing: We all have different experiences. And all our experiences are true. And those experiences can teach us so much about how to be human, how to love one another, if we let them. The concerned Christians I know understand that and work for that personally and on an institutional level.

The map is not the territory. And if you mistake the map for the territory, you are in danger of becoming a fundamentalist. It's a short step from fundamentalism to terrorism.

I wish I knew how to end this post. I'd like to make some big call asking for people to honor Dr. Tiller and his family by volunteering for birth control education and access, a cause that both pro-choice and pro-life people can unite around. But I just feel too sad about his death, and the prospect that terrorists will make it impossible to save women's lives, and that women (like my friend Cecily) will die, and little kids (like my friend Cecily's daughter) will never be born because their mothers died before they we conceived.

I wish I knew what to say.

Kate

This morning I woke up to yelling and complaints and feeling like I was behind, even though it was 30 minutes before the alarm was going to go off. And no one would give me a hug. It was the loneliest feeling, like I was still married to someone who didn't like me. And I thought about Kate Gosselin waking up alone this morning to nothing but pure demand after all of her crap aired last night for the world to gawk at.

I've never been a fan of the "so many kids we can't keep track of them" shows, so I never watched much of Jon & Kate Plus Eight. If I'm going to be honest, though, I really couldn't watch because Kate's brittleness and the way she snapped at Jon felt so familiar to me. I could feel her disappointment in him and their relationship pouring off her, and it was too familiar for me to handle.

I think there are a lot of us who are raised to be with a certain kind of man, but then it turns out that we really needed someone with a kind of strength that the men we married just didn't have. And we stay for a long, long time, because we're Good Girls and we convince ourselves it's our own fault somehow. If we were just kinder and softer, he'd step up and be the strength we needed. But you can't change someone. People are who they are.

Kate must be so lonely inside her prison. Say what you will about the decisions she's made, she IS in prison. And I think she originally thought Jon was there in the cell with her, but now she's realizing he's in another cell, they're being forced to play Prisoner's Dilemma, and she has no idea how he's going to choose.

Being strong gets really old when there's no one who thinks you're special. But what choice do you have when you're a mother? You go on for your kids.

I hope Kate can move on from this. And I hope someday she finds someone with whom she can relax and be vulnerable and trust enough to be her better self. I've been in that hard place, locked in so much disfunction that I became a brittle facade of myself because if I didn't put up an exoskeleton I would bleed out emotionally.

In my better moments I have faith that there's someone out there who will think I'm special. And I know there's someone out there for Kate who will tap into her good qualities. The trick is hanging on until he shows up.

Welching

I knew I said I wasn't going to watch The Bachelorette because I was so disgusted by the Jason Mesnick Bachelor. But my DVR taped The Bachelorette on Monday (I fell asleep on the couch at 9:30). And my new self is way more in touch with my evil side, so I started watching just to check out the guys, and I may be in.

Maybe.

(Preliminary picks for the Final Three before they showed the promo for the upcoming season were Jake (the pilot), Jesse (the winemaker and aspiring Canadian), and either the foot fetishist or the slick ball-throwing guy. After the promo I'm not sure anymore.)

Wah wah wah

I'd love to post more, but this whole thing has just cracked open a huge mass of seething anger and rage about a lot of things that I think would be too frightening for people. So if you want to know how I'm feeling right now, just Google '"blue october" lyrics' and pretty much whatever comes up will be pretty accurate.

Moving on....

One of my best heart-friends and I haven't talked in almost half a year, and we got back in touch this morning (he's on a different continent right now), and he's found the love of his life and is engaged! I could not be more thrilled for him, as I knew he wasn't sure he'd ever find her, but he's just got so much love inside him and will make a wonderful husband.

I reacted to the news by bursting into happy tears, thinking "Thank God it actually works for some people," and realizing that my passport has been expired for a long time. So I finally went and got a passport photo taken (hilariously awful!) and then was thwarted by the whole renew-by-mail system because my last passport expired so long ago. I applied for that one the day the Rodney King verdict was announced, so yeah, a long time ago. Now I'm going to have to go stand in line for this thing. Which is why I've delayed so long anyway.

Dwelling on these petty annoyances is good.

Checking in

Work helps. So do friends. And reality TV.

Progress report

I am still here. I wake up every day. And that's as good as it gets for now.

No joy in Mudville

The Rock and I have broken up. Our relationship was going really well when we actually saw each other, but you can't hold something together when you see each other maybe every six weeks, if you're lucky. I made a last-ditch attempt to convince my ex to move to the city The Rock lives in, and offered some major, major concessions, but my ex likes his job too much here. So we broke up, because there's no future for us together. (He's in the same non-moving situation I am, with a child and an ex who won't budge.)

I am so, so, so sad. The Rock matched me in so many ways, and I could have been thrilled with him for the rest of my life. Honestly, I haven't felt this sad since my heart was broken the first time when i was 16. I think it's because I feel like it was this stupid logistical thing that broke us up, not a problem with us. It's just so Victorian. Or Gothic. I'm not sure which one. But I'm in deep, sad, pain.

I just had the realization, though, that when I was still married and unable to feel any emotion, I couldn't even imagine this. It is truly good to be in emotional pain, because it means I'm free of my marriage, in mind. Even if my ex-husband controls where I live.

Bacon-Brown Sugar Coffee Cake

Here's the bacon coffee cake recipe I've been thinking about for a few weeks. I wanted something that would use the savoriness and richness of bacon, caramelized with brown sugar. And I wanted to give coffee cake an extra grounding, so it would have a more weighty bottom note to make it even more satisfying.

Surprisingly, I think I hit it on the first try. The cake itself is the classic sour cream bundt cake recipe, but the swirl/streusel part is different (and far superior, IMO).

Bacon-Brown Sugar Coffee Cake
(c) 2009 Moxie/Magda

6-8 slices bacon (regular or sugar or maple-cured, but NOT peppered or jalapeño or garlic or anything you wouldn't want in cake)
2 sticks butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
2 cups AP flour
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup uncooked rolled oats

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour the bundt pan.

Fry the bacon slices until crisp. Set aside to cool and drain.

Cream together butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and sour cream. Sift together flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir in to creamed mixture and blend.

Crumble or chop bacon slices into little pieces. Add dark brown sugar and oats, and mush together with your fingers to get the bacon and sugar blended and clumped with the oats. It will be a loose mixture, but you want the three elements to be well-acquainted with each other.

Put half the cake batter into the bundt pan (you'll have to put globs of it in--it's a thick batter), then top with half the bacon mix. Put on the rest of the batter, and top with the remmaining bacon mixture.

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour, until done (test with a toothpick or your finger). Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before eating. If you let it cool for a few hours, the cake itself seems to taste a little sweeter.

The sad life of an underappreciated genius

There is nothing going on of note here. We're going to my parents' for Easter at the end of the week. Continuing the ridiculous rain that makes all public transportation slow down in NYC. (Why??? I think the terrorists have won on this one.) My jaw-clenching has subsided somewhat so my headache is less intense, plus I've gotten used to it so it's not crippling me anymore.

My main problem at this point is that I have about 40 million dollar ideas, and no capital or staff to start them up. Sigh. And I don't even mean the monkey ranch--I'm talking actual ideas that could work.

Pesach-safe and GF Brownie recipe

A few years ago when I had my gluten intolerance, I modified the Katharine Hepburn brownie recipe not to use any wheat flour. I chose that particular recipe because A) it's the best brownie recipe I've ever tried, and B) there's so little flour in it that I figured the modification had a chance at being pretty successful.

I tried rice flour (too gritty) and cornstarch (too off), but settled on potato starch (just right, and very moist). Which makes it a perfect recipe for Passover, too.

These are very dense rich, moist brownies. I wouldn't make them with wheat flour anymore, because the potato starch keeps the moistness much better, IMO.

KFP/GF Brownies You'll Make All Year And For People Who Can Eat Wheat, Too

1 stick butter
1/2 cup cocoa powder (the better the cocoa powder, the better the brownies)
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/4 potato starch
pinch of salt
splash of pure vanilla extract

Preheat the over to 325 degrees F. Grease an 8-inch by 8-inch baking pan (or line the bottom with parchment paper).

In a small saucepan, melt together the butter and cocoa powder. Stir until smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Stir the eggs in quickly, one at a time, so they don't scramble. The mix will look really gloppy at this point. Stir in the sugar, and it should smooth out considerably. Stir in the potato starch and salt, and then the vanilla extract.

Pour into the baking pan, and bake for 30 minutes. This should be just about underbaked (better to underbake than overbake), but check at 25 minutes.

Allow to cool for as long as you can stand it, then eat.