pastaphilia

04-25-00

Fleck: Mom's brushing the floor again!

Mom: Stay out of the dust, Fleck. (goes to get the dustpan)

Fleck: I'll just stay right here and guard it for you, Mom! (flop)

There's something about revealing my plans in this journal that stops me from completeing them. I'm going to say right now that while I may complain about my job, I am getting a new one, so don't fret. That's all I'm going to say, because I can't keep fucking it up.

Instead of writing about what I'm going to do, I'm writing about what I've done. Short entry today, then. I left the house once.

I did get up early, around 9. I feel like I wasted some time today, but the opposite is true. I cleaned and reorganized the desk, made some important phone calls, and talked to John. I ran into John's mom on ICQ and she inspired me to start up a batch of spaghetti sauce. New readers may not know about the sauce: this is "special" sauce, created by John's Italian grandfather. It's a basic enough recipe, but the spices are secret and I know what they are! Hehehe. John doesn't even know what the spices are; he only thinks he does. That list he found in my bag one day (when he was exploring pockets he shouldn't have been) was a decoy. Today I got the recipe for the meatballs, so this Saturday I'll be mushing around in ground turkey and garlic powder. Mmmm.

Every time I make this spaghetti sauce I feel like I've messed it up, for about three hours. Basically, it's just a whole lot of tomatoes, some garlic, oregano, basil, celery salt, mushrooms, and the secret spices. You put it in the pot and let it simmer. Three days later you've got this dark, sludgy layer of sauce that's absolutely amazing. But the first few hours, it looks, smells, and tastes like regular tomato sauce, with some spices thrown in. I look at it and think, well, it's going to be different this time, that's all. Then, after about five hours, I stir and the unmistakable smell wafts up and I know I've done it right.

The first time John and I made this sauce in our first apartment, we made a triple batch. We had gallons of this sauce around the house. (John's mother sent us the spices pre-mixed; John isn't allowed to see them and I didn't get them until after the wedding.) We froze the sauce in ziplocs and kept one in the fridge all the time. Every day, every day, I cooked pasta for dinner. Then I'd squeeze out the cold sauce onto the warm pasta and eat, sometimes right from the pasta pot. No kidding, every day. John doesn't even eat it every day. I've always been a pastaphile.

I forewent the customary three day simmer and ate some of the sauce for dinner. It was tomatoey and tangy, not the divine sludge it will be by Thursday. I'll probably eat it tomorrow, too. It doesn't say in the recipe that you can't eat any early.

John's in Tampa. Don't know what interest that holds, but I can't think of anything interesting to say.

Now I've gone and committed two of the biggest sins in Betsy's Rules of Keeping an Online Journal:

1. Saying there's something so incredibly important in my life, but I'm not going to talk about it. I quote me: "I'm getting a job, but I'm not talking about it here."

2. Saying "Well, I don't have much to say today, so maybe I'll just talk your ear off about nothing for a while, gee, isn't that guy cute?"

Shit, now all I have to do is use the word "journal" as a verb and I'll be someone I hate. There's no such thing as journalling, and you are not a journaler, or a journaller. All these discussions on one L or two L's are unnecessary because it's not a frigging word in the first place.

(Yeah, and "frigging" is a word.)

Don't even tell me that "to journal" is in the dictionary. That doesn't mean it's a word, it means it's in common usage. The only way to know if something's really a word is to ask me. I'll tell you if it's a frigging word.

Now I have to mark my negative thoughts card. I was doing so well today, dammit.