Love.

Right before I moved away from Phoenix in October, 2001 I wrote the following:
"tonight was a fun time.
the weather was perfect.
we even started a fire in the backyard.
loved ones.
benjamin - my sanity.
drew - doesn't realize how much he means to me.
liz - she understands what i'm going through without bryce. we make zines!
stacy - the most caring person i've ever met.
josh - wishy woshy joshy woshy. i love him.
amy - i will probably always remember her eyes when she's about to say something funny.
kate - i just think kate is rad.
brian - same.
wendy - god, me and wendy have been through so much together, she's always there and i know she always wiill be.
daniel - i hope things work out between wendy and daniel, he's good for her ( i think )
dusty - although i haven't talked to her in a long time, i hope she is doing well, she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown last time i saw her.
denny - no i will not make out with you
kz - (redacted).
chet - sometimes i miss being his mom because of the sparkle he gets in his eyes when he gets a new toy or something.
travis - i miss his stern humor.
radical cheer - better than pizza.
brave dames - radical dialog with ladies, yes!
tom b. - beautiful smile
gentle strength co-oprative - arg! i hope this place remains open. i love everything about the co-op.
all the arizona anarchists i've met - continue making the revolution fun.

i'll be back in two years."

I didn't use capital letters back then (because I didn't believe in capitalism) and obviously those two years stretched into 11 years.

It's odd and amazing to me that almost all of these people are still in my life. So here it is, 11 years later and I'm writing the same thing to the people I love in Seattle. I never thought I'd end up in Seattle...ever. But life is weird and never turns out the way you expect it to.

Here we go, in no order:
Candice - We braved a traumatic math class that pushed us closer together, then I fed you home-brew and the rest is awesome history. When I said you taught me how to have a healthy friendship with a woman, I meant that. Not in one of those smarmy lady-hating-all-my-female-friends-suck ways, in a really good way. You surround yourself people who make you happy and I'm thrilled to fit in there with all these other great people.
Trevor - You were my first friend in Seattle and saying goodbye to you sucks because now you're one of my best friends. Thank you for being an awesome housemate twice. Consensus will always be made on porches, with beers, and awesome friends (including Gimpy).
Joe - My favorite thing about you is that you make Candice so happy. My second favorite thing about you is the few times we've hung out without the rest of the crew. Storm games always started out socially awkward and then ended in a fun mess of yelling at both teams.
Nathan - Right now is probably one of the more difficult times in your life and I hope/am pretty sure moving in with us helped you through a lot of the junk you're wading through. I hope you know you can always go bother Trevor but please keep your shoes off of my couch.
Max and Nova - For the love of everything, please take your shoes off before you jump on my couch! I love you two! I'm looking forward to coming back to Seattle to visit you and being shocked at how much you've grown up each year.
Monika - Waaaayy. Your love of bacon is cliche at this point but still pretty serious. You've taught me a lot about food and cooking among other things. I'm sure you'll find all kinds of awesome in Berkley. I'm so excited to eat fancy foods and kill invasive species with you in Berkley.
Erica - Let's see, we've done book club, potluck, game night, bike building, and cross section together...I bet I'm forgetting something. We are quite different people and I think that's what I like the best about you. Being around you is grounding and you may singlehandedly keep game night crew going without even knowing it. I love your stealthy quiet sarcasm and humor.
Alex T - First, you and Monika are perfect for each other, and I mean that in the kindest way. You bring a lot of fun to my Friday nights and I'd totally destroy some invasive species with you whenever.
Charles - Your snide remarks make me laugh, sometimes uncontrollably. I'm glad you're part of the game night crew.
Jeff - I wish really great things for you in Sacremento. I'm happy our break up didn't suck too much and I'm thrilled that we can still chat and be friends. Thank you for making four years of Seattle awesome, thank you for all the amazing road trips, and thank you for all your kind company.
Andrew - I really hope you're out of the hospital before I leave. More than that, I hope you feel better really soon. I hope you find the happiness that you're looking for wherever that is. The biggest bummer about getting laid-off was not seeing you every day. You told me I need to start writing Repro Comics again, maybe I will.
Hexe - I wish we had more adventures together and I wish more of our schemes came to fruition. Let's adventure in the desert.
Bryce - I've spent more time than I'd care to admit reading old live journal entries where I was gushing over you. And I can't help think how weird it is the way my life turned out and the roll you played in it. There will always be a place in my heart for you and what we had. It's nice to know we can still be friends.
Timmi - You are one of the two people who gave me the strength to continue my education when we went through this extremely difficult last year of school. I'm so happy we became such good friends.
Tom - Your words are usually thoughtful and spot on. Thank you for your kind heart. We'll talk more about the problems in education and I'm pretty sure we'll always end up with more questions than answers. Our chats have helped me finish this degree and I'm pretty thankful for that.

If I forgot you, that's because I have too much on my plate right now and can't really think straight. I love all of you and am gonna miss you dearly. The big hugs last night made me get all teary eyed.

Farting Confidential

I've had stomach issues since I was a teenager. Last week a friend of mine asked me if I thought she should go gluten free and she sent me a link to a website talking about the relationship between low stomach acid and gluten issues. I told her what I usually tell people when they consider the gluten free diet, "try it for a week or two and see how you feel, it's not unsafe if your diet is good". In all of my time researching gluten disorders, I've never came across "low stomach acid". What hit me the hardest was the symptoms, they were more like my symptoms than those associated with celiac disease. In the past couple of years I've told people I have celiac disease with the caveat that I'd never been officially diagnosed, it's too hard to diagnose once you've stopped eating gluten (true), and why bother. Without the diagnosis and a few of the more tell-tale signs of celiac, I always felt like a celiac-fraud. The symptoms for low stomach acid reminded me more of the personal hell that I was going through 5 years ago. I was dealing with severe acne, intense stomach cramping, a sudden gain of 30 pounds, panic attacks, and nearly every food I put in my mouth burned with an allergic reaction.

So this hell brought me to a string of doctors who wouldn't listen to me, wouldn't give me the time of day, and wouldn't take my concerns as anything more than "that's just something that happens sometimes when you get older" (I was a youthful 25 year old). With each trip to the doctor, my body got weaker, my symptoms got worse, and I was starting to believe that I was getting closer to an early death, and maybe that wasn't so bad because I felt so bad all the time. Desperate for a doctor to just listen to me, I begged a Seattle blog for suggestions and came up with Dr. Takla Gardey, a naturopath and medical doctor.

Dr. Gardey sat and listened to me list off all of the problems I'd been having and then she told me she wanted to help me get well again. I spent 45 minutes alone with this doctor, having a conversation about my health, she admitted she didn't know what was wrong but that it sounded like everything was related. So she put me on an elimination diet and that's when I discovered that gluten was no good for me. I felt really good while on the elimination diet, my anxiety was gone, acne was starting to clear up, my body felt refreshed. Immediately after the elimination diet, the acne came back and I went back to feeling moderately crappy. Eliminating gluten successfully controlled the panic attacks and the out of control food allergies though, the problem that was bothering me the most. I was appeased and we treated the acne separately. My insurance changed (and then went to non-existant) and I couldn't see Dr. Gardey anymore.

As of a year ago, my blood work indicates that I'm low on iron as well as a several other minerals. After all this, my body is still not absorbing food well.

And I have acid reflux now too.

I spent the last hour researching gluten peptides and how your body mistakes them for opioid peptides. My understanding of peptides and opioids is that when your stomach is worn down, your body may start confusing gluten peptides with opioid peptides (opiates that your body produces). This would explain the nasty withdrawal symptoms that I went through when I quit gluten (flu-like symptoms that left me fixated on eating bread and went away when I gave in), as well as the intense cravings of bread that I had every morning of my life. While not nearly as intense as a legit opiate addict, I was literally addicted to gluten.

So with all this, I'm still trying to figure out what's wrong with me and what happened back then. I want to eat regular pizza again, I want to eat peanut butter, I want to eat so much guacamole. And more than all of that, I really don't want you to feel sorry for me. The more I research the "low stomach acid" or hypochlrohydria, the more I think about the possibility of having a normal food life. Maybe it's wishful thinking but without a real diagnosis of anything other than "don't eat gluten if it makes you feel sick" I have to wonder if building up a stomach with a normal pH level might allow me to eat normally.

Symptoms of Hypochlorhydria include: Bloating, belching, burning,flatulence immediately after meals, indigestion, diarrhoea, constipation, itching around the anus, multiple food allergies, brittle finger nails, dilated blood vessels on cheeks and nose, acne, iron deficiency, parasites, candida albicans proliferation, nausea after taking nutritional supplements. Source

2012: The Year of the Taco

More breakfast tacos. This time I made them in the oven. I spooned raw scrambled eggs over hot tortillas coated with bubbly, melty cheese. The eggs ran all over the hot baking sheet and once solid, I was able to scrape them onto the tortilla. Then back into the 450 degree oven for a minute. Topped with cotija cheese and fresh salsa. They turned out beautiful! I'm slowly perfecting a quick way to breakfast taco every morning.

2012: The End of the World

Soundtrack for this post:
I spent most of December in Arizona seeing family and friends that feel like family. The sun was bright and warm almost every day. The citrus was fruitful (valley of the pun). The nights often stretched to 4 in the morning followed by iced coffees at noon. I could get used to this life. The radio towers that sparkle on South Mountain often caught my eye and I remembered being mesmerized by them as a child. The East Valley feels like home because it is. It feels grounding and historical. A chat with a friend who recently moved back to Phoenix from NYC gave me extra confidence in moving back to Tempe. My friends in Seattle say I seem happier and eager. I'm ready, I'm excited, now is the absolute right time.
With that, I'm ready to spend as much time as I can with the people I love here in Seattle. 2012 is a leap year and that means Seattle gets an extra day with me. One extra day to fill with parties, lunching ladies, art, gardening, cooking, and sitting on the porch (who is throwing my going away party?). I've built a beautiful life here and am excited to pack that up and move it to the place I was born. I just wish I could pack people up too. As exciting as 2012 will be, I know it will be a year full of completely new challenges. Some of these challenges I'm up for, some I could do without.

How To Carnitas - An Ode To Pork

"Carnitas, show me the way. what do i do... to make the delecioso?"
It's 8 pm on the West Coast and I got an email from a friend asking for my carnitas recipe. This isn't the first person to ask for this recipe. It is, after all, like eating magical velvet pork (see photos below as proof).
In Spanish, carnitas translates to "little meats". Little tiny meats dancing upon your corn tortilla. Little tiny meats dancing on your tongue. Carnitas, second only to bacon, are a great blessing from the cloven hoofed pig. Lucky for you, my recipe for carnitas contains bacon and pork shoulder. So you'll want to buy both of those. That's it. Your shopping list is complete. Carnitas is all about technique and the technique isn't that complicated.

Line a cast iron pan with bacon (or don't, I don't always use bacon, you're just going to want to add salt and pepper if you don't use bacon).
Cut your pork shoulder into large chunks and place into pan.
Pour about 2-3 cups of water into your cast iron pan so the pork is mostly covered.
Place in an oven at 350 degrees for 5 hours. Turn your chunks occasionally making sure the water doesn't evaporate.
After about 3 hours you'll be able to take a fork and break apart the pork chunks. You can do this now or after 5 or 6 hours. The pork should just fall apart if it's done.
I was at this restaurant in San Francisco that quickly fried the carnitas before serving them. This made the edges crispy but the center still broke apart like butter. Mmmm.

I will often fry up corn tortillas (on the other cast iron pan) in a little oil. Add a couple of slices of cheese to the tortilla, let the cheese melt, and then add the carnitas.
Garnish with fresh salsa, cilantro, crema, and some avocados if that's what you're into.
You too can be as happy as these folks.

Another Ode to Breakfast Tacos

Much like Ron Swanson, I have an admiration for breakfast foods and pretty dark haired women. Bacon, eggs, toast, these are all things I eat for breakfast almost every morning. I eat a big breakfast and it keeps me going all day. I enjoy waking up early to cook myself breakfast and get a pot of coffee brewing (I may never successfully quit coffee). My second favorite meal is tacos. So breakfast tacos happen often around here. Since the most recent of my housemates moved in (he's gluten free too), we almost always have those big packages of 80 corn tortillas in the house - and we go through them pretty quick too.

So everything is up for re-imagining to fit inside a corn tortilla. Today I melted some Mt Townsend New Moon cheese on a corn tortilla and layered it with Skagit Valley bacon (side note, Skagit Valley Farms Bacon is the best I've ever had and I'm hoping I can find something comparable in Phoenix), caramelized zucchini, scrambled eggs and fried tomatoes from Kittitas Valley Greenhouse.

I've also been known to use mashed potatoes, cheese and eggs to fry a folded corn tortilla shut. This is another version of breakfast tacos that is fantastic and highly portable. The photo on your right is potato and egg tacos, served with a patty pan squash from my friend Candice's garden fried in bacon fat and finished off with lime juice.
I've said it before, there's nothing quite as good as fried corn masa.

I need to find a good hot sauce recipe and am looking for suggestions.

How to Make Chicken Less Boring

Dude. Chicken is boring. I don't usually eat chicken because it's so incredibly boring. I don't see the point in adding chicken, I'd rather eat vegetables. So when I started a house poll last Sunday of "who wants roast?" and the answer was an unanimous "uh...everyone" I mobbed up to the store to get some supplies. Being on a budget, I examined the prices of all the meaty roast cuts thoroughly. Chicken was the most economical and we need to make chicken stock anyway. I will admit that roast chicken is rarely boring. So I, only slightly begrudgingly, bought a chicken. Pears are in season so I bought a couple of those too, not really sure how they would fit into this meal. Our garden still has plenty of herbs so I picked some sage, parsley, and oregano and put that in with some melted butter and garlic. I still wasn't sure what to do with this pear I though. If I put the pear in with the vegetables under the chicken, it might be off-putting with its sweetness. I then thought about thinly slicing the pear and putting it over the exterior of the chicken but maybe that would ruin the delicious skin. But what about under the skin? Yes! Thinly sliced pears, along with butter and herbs, underneath crispy chicken skin is the way to go. I used two sticks of butter for this entire meal. One stick of butter for the exterior of the chicken, half a stick for the cavity, half a stick for the vegetables. The vegetables here were: brussels sprouts, carrots, potatoes (purple, white, and red), and a sweet potato.

Zines! Begging For More - Ladyfest Edition

I used to write zines back when zines were a thing that people did. Most of my high school years were spent listening to riot grrl music and being in abusive relationships. I realize the irony here but screaming along to Bikini Kill was the only way I could live with myself.
Some of my readers have seen the black and white print editions of the zines that I've written, most of you haven't. Probably none of you have seen the master editions, the ones with all the cut up little pieces of paper.
I want to caution you and I want to add a billion caveats to this project. The writing is raw and usually bad. The writing is from someone who barely graduated high school and had the most amazing case of manic, impulsive, attention deficits. I think that's why zines were the perfect medium for me, I could stay up all night and xerox my masterpiece the next day.
So we'll start with the first couple of pages of Begging For More: Ladyfest edition. Stay tuned for more! You can click on the image to enlarge.

Love/Anti-Love: Number Five, With a Bullet

This love/anti-love thing has been arduous. There's so much I want to write about but can't seem to get the words out right. I'm resigned to think that's just the way love is. Whatever.
I realize now that this adventure shouldn't have been about loving other people. This adventure should have been about self love and self care. I get so wrapped up in keeping my GPA up, pleasing others, and the internet that all of a sudden, I don't have any time for myself. Doing this sucks.
I think I've been doing a pretty great job this summer of minding my self care. I've done so much for myself and I'm proud of myself. I started writing a novel and quickly signed up for NaNoWriMo to write a 50,000 word novel in November. I'm silk screening shirts with my friend Candice. I'm still making amazing food. The tomatoes are becoming red in our garden and I ate an excellent cucumber from our garden yesterday. I've surrounded myself with the most amazing people in the world. People who inspire me. People who instigate fun and creativity.
You hear people say that it's all about who you know (blahblahblah), as if being well connected will get you far in life. I like to think that the people you are connected to will get you far in life because they are your inspiration rather than dumb capitalist nepotism.

So this summer is all about what's life affirming. In this final Love/Anti-Love post, I'm brining you two songs and they're both love songs...no anti-love here.

At this moment, I'm in love with laying out in the back yard and staring at the stars or soaking up the sun. I think about how there are so many terrible things happening under this sky. I think about how being depressed instead of fighting back is psychic death and that maybe I've been too familiar with psychic death...maybe I've been too distracted. Depression can be debilitating. So with that; "rejoice despite the fact this world will hurt you, and rejoice despite the fact this world will kill you, and rejoice despite this world will tear you to shreds, rejoice because you're trying your best".
Andrew Jackson Jihad - Rejoice



I've also thought a lot about how cynical I've been. I've led a life full of cynicism that went unchecked until I heard this song. It went unchecked because I thought cynicism was cool. Cynicism is a dishonest way to deal with your trauma and broken heart. So I want to share Cynicism by Nana Grizol with you and wish you perfect sunsets.

"I once saw a sunset
So vivid and warm that I swore it was perfect
I once had a lover,
I'm not sure if I'll recover,
But I know it was worth it
Then, last night in the car,
The falling raindrops looked like stars
Of some incalculable speed...
Cynicism isn't wisdom,
It's a lazy way to say that you've been burned."

Love/Anti-Love Part 4: Rap Edition

Anti-Love Song: Macklemore's Love Song

Macklemore is so cute. That said, this song is one of Macklemore's earlier songs off of the album "The Language of My World" which dropped in early 2005. I started to really get into Macklemore late last year and listened to almost nothing else. His lyrics are insightful, hilarious, clever, and heartbreaking. Last March I listened Macklemore's "Love Song" a lot, I was going through a break up, confused, heartbroken, and lonely. I can relate to an alarming amount of Macklemore's songs about addiction, love, and politics.
I'm posting the lyrics, in their entirety for both of these songs so that y'all can make your own inferences and connections.
"Yo,I'm gettin older now
23 years old and half of me just wants to make the move and go and settle down
The other half's like, 'Hell no, you better mess around. Don't let me down, especially when you got an album commin out'
When I first saw you, I'm like 'Aw shit, goddamit look what God did. Hail Mary Jesus!'
Three years later I'm sittin in our apartment thinkin about all the places that my heart's been
I mean its crazy right?
This is maybe wife - the one that found me in a drought, pulled me out and made me right
Through the ups and downs we stuck it out and now you're leavin town
Another couple thousand miles south, which leads to crazy fights
And I don't know how to deal with it, I gotta be real with ya
Uh, each day I get filled with the feelin of realer love, wanna continue,
But, this ain't the same old love song cause we been through the depths where all the trust is gone
For months on end all we have is phone calls
You know what makes it worth it?
To watch someone progress
To have them watch you
Someone that you respect and value and cry too
It's something so comforting cause it could bring so much truth
But that magic can be stagnant and the relationship doesn't move
The commitment's to yourself and that you're always learning, to acknowledge you're both perfect and still wanna keep working
To progress as a person but as an individual entity and then come together as a unit but still maintain that identity
It sounds so elementary but it's so complex, it's the most delicate balance to get away from attachments
But it could work
I'm tempted in how we're livin it
To keep defining and redefining what love and commitment is

Every time I ignore you
Every time I come around I see your face always movin

Yo, just workin on dependency
Sometimes the thing you love the most in this world you just gotta let it be
It hurts to have to set it free
And if it does, it doesn't work we both know that it was meant to breath
Can't hide from experiences and there's so many people out there in this world were gonna find interesting
It's only a matter of time before that right connection
Thousands of miles away, whatchu expect?
You see I'm wonderin where are you?
Tearin the label off of a beer as I'm sittin at this barstool
You would tell me not to call you, to never use you as a fall through
To sit with my emotion, but the lump in my throat builds as the heart rips open up, and not even your voice alone can shift or go and close it shut
So I just let it flow through me, feelin lifted from the spirit like the bag in American Beauty
And if your life truly flashes in front of you, when you die just know the best time of my life has been lovin you
Lovin' you, you know

We been together but in my head,
We would break apart; I would hold my heart, tied inside
But you knew that my soul could not be given to anybody easily

It's a beautiful thing isn't it?
One more time Ev,

Every time I can't ignore you
(Feels good don't it?)
Every time I come around I see your face always movin"

See, great lyrics. Insightful. Pretty much everything your therapist or experienced best friend would tell you about relationships.

Love Song: Blue Scholars' Life & Debt

Another mid-2000's Seattle rap release. Although, the new Shabazz Palaces is quickly growing on me, I'm totally in love with the new Blue Scholars album Cinemetropolis just as much as I was in 2006 when I discovered Blue Scholars' self titled album. I chose Life & Debt because I've only ever been with people without money. Since I've left my parent's house, I've only ever known being poor. I can relate to "standing with me in the grocery line while I'm paying with a jar of pennies, nickels, and dimes" in every relationship I've ever been in. This song makes me hopeful for a relationship that money can't kill, a bond impermeable to low finances. Love in the time of poverty.
"Yo, life and debt, light a cigarette smoke the stress,
Take a deep breath baby, let's rearrange the mess we've inherited
Alienated from what is rightfully yours and mine, land
is life, money is time paid for labor
Working eight to five, sometimes six seven eight
We come home and barely know the neighbors
Bills are usually late
Interest accumulates at a usury rate
Collection agency waits from
Pay check to next one, budget like a noose
Working while we sing the proletariat blues
On 501-C3 community plantations,
Non profit sector propped up to kill the movement
for the changes in production relations
But woman you're my comrade, ride and die, revolution-making mother earth
Standing with me in the grocery line while I'm paying with a jar of pennies, nickels, and dimes

And I love how you don't like art without a message
I love it how you call some fellas on they fetish
Third world sister, never sacrificing substance for style
But stylish with a golden type smile
I love it how you organize with other strong sisters
Love it how you talk about tearing down the system
Like a soldier, my dialectical reflection,
'Yes' is the answer to your question.

Life and debt, write another check to the landlord,
No time to dwell on all the things we can't afford
Got a baby in the womb, a soldier for the future that we're fighting for
Concrete conditions that I'm writin for
The payback, it's way past due
And they say that the masses ain't ready but
We know that ain't true,
You and I both children of Filipino immigrants
From the same island, our ancestors smiling,
Cuz we found one another in a strange land struggling
Moms tryin' to tell us not to protest instead pray for peace,
But that ain't the nature of the beast
So lady grab the bullhorn and take it to the streets
Yellin power to the people, el pueblo unido jamas sera vencido
Til the wealth is spread equal
You 21st century Gabriela Silan
Fierce like Lorena with a rifle in her arms

And I love how you love the people as much as self
I love it how you want redistribution of the wealth
Third world sister, never sacrificing substance for style
But stylish with a golden type smile
I love it how you organize with other strong sisters
Love it how you talk about tearing down the system
Like a soldier, my dialectical reflection,
'Yes' is the answer to your question"
Life and debt