(no subject)
Without looking it up, I assume this is the longest I've gone without writing anything here. I have no idea what made me decide to come back to it.
I like to be open, and I've felt slightly pressured not to say much about Nadja here, since she's sometimes been uncomfortable with me talking about her online. Well, awhile ago I told her I wasn't the person to be with if she wanted secrets, and she seemed to accept it, so I guess I shouldn't worry about it.
So, in June she visited me for three weeks. She'd never been to America before, and it was really fun to have her around. I'm writing this in bed before going to sleep because I'd normally be talking to her, but she's not online.
She's talking about staying with me for several months starting around Thanksgiving. It's hard to believe that it's really going to happen, but she makes it sound more likely than not.
I love her. I was kind of trying to figure out how to work that in, like, with a transition, but it wasn't coming to me. She loves me too (She says--but I was sure of it before she said so. Also, one probably doesn't seriously consider leaving one's entire life behind to move nine time zones to live with someone they're not in love with.)
So that's all been pretty awesome.
Magic hasn't been going quite as well this year. I'm behind where I was at this point the last two years. I'm working with an amazingly good team (Zvi, Finkel, Gau, the OMS Brothers, and several others) for the next PT, so I hope to do well enough there to turn everything around.
Cooking has been pretty awesome. I got a marble tile and a granite tile to use as pizza stones, and in addition to making delicious pizza, I've learned how to make pretty respectable naan, and I'm getting better at Indian curries. I think I can do Mexican, Thai, and Italian dishes better than most restaurants, but Indian will take some work.
Today I made mashed potatoes for the first time ever. I'm not usually a big fan of those, but I made the best I've had and they were quite good:
5 or 6 small Yukon gold potatoes, 4 whole peel cloves of garlic. Wrap them in foil, put them in the oven at 400 for an hour. Dice a few more cloves of garlic and about half an inch of ginger. Sautee it in about a fifth of a stick of butter with some cumin and rosemary. Smash the roasted potatoes and garlic with a fork, then dice about 2 square inches of cheddar (maybe a little less) into the potatoes. Add it to the pan, and add salt, pepper, parsley, paprika, and a little bit of dill. Cook until thoroughly mixed.
Lex just moved to a house that's further from where she'd like to be. It has a little more space than she had before, but apparently that's a trap because it means they have an extra room that they might rent to a stranger. It's also slightly more inconvenient to take her to work from there, but only very slightly. Mostly it hasn't cone up yet because she'd been staying with me more because their house wasn't really ready for her. Aside from that things are going pretty normally for her.
More of my friends are moving away from Madison. Tabak and Shapiro are gone, I think Jake might leave at any time, and Dave doesn't have many more years here. It's going to be a lot harder to get drafts together soon. Maybe I'll even have to think about moving someday.
I like to be open, and I've felt slightly pressured not to say much about Nadja here, since she's sometimes been uncomfortable with me talking about her online. Well, awhile ago I told her I wasn't the person to be with if she wanted secrets, and she seemed to accept it, so I guess I shouldn't worry about it.
So, in June she visited me for three weeks. She'd never been to America before, and it was really fun to have her around. I'm writing this in bed before going to sleep because I'd normally be talking to her, but she's not online.
She's talking about staying with me for several months starting around Thanksgiving. It's hard to believe that it's really going to happen, but she makes it sound more likely than not.
I love her. I was kind of trying to figure out how to work that in, like, with a transition, but it wasn't coming to me. She loves me too (She says--but I was sure of it before she said so. Also, one probably doesn't seriously consider leaving one's entire life behind to move nine time zones to live with someone they're not in love with.)
So that's all been pretty awesome.
Magic hasn't been going quite as well this year. I'm behind where I was at this point the last two years. I'm working with an amazingly good team (Zvi, Finkel, Gau, the OMS Brothers, and several others) for the next PT, so I hope to do well enough there to turn everything around.
Cooking has been pretty awesome. I got a marble tile and a granite tile to use as pizza stones, and in addition to making delicious pizza, I've learned how to make pretty respectable naan, and I'm getting better at Indian curries. I think I can do Mexican, Thai, and Italian dishes better than most restaurants, but Indian will take some work.
Today I made mashed potatoes for the first time ever. I'm not usually a big fan of those, but I made the best I've had and they were quite good:
5 or 6 small Yukon gold potatoes, 4 whole peel cloves of garlic. Wrap them in foil, put them in the oven at 400 for an hour. Dice a few more cloves of garlic and about half an inch of ginger. Sautee it in about a fifth of a stick of butter with some cumin and rosemary. Smash the roasted potatoes and garlic with a fork, then dice about 2 square inches of cheddar (maybe a little less) into the potatoes. Add it to the pan, and add salt, pepper, parsley, paprika, and a little bit of dill. Cook until thoroughly mixed.
Lex just moved to a house that's further from where she'd like to be. It has a little more space than she had before, but apparently that's a trap because it means they have an extra room that they might rent to a stranger. It's also slightly more inconvenient to take her to work from there, but only very slightly. Mostly it hasn't cone up yet because she'd been staying with me more because their house wasn't really ready for her. Aside from that things are going pretty normally for her.
More of my friends are moving away from Madison. Tabak and Shapiro are gone, I think Jake might leave at any time, and Dave doesn't have many more years here. It's going to be a lot harder to get drafts together soon. Maybe I'll even have to think about moving someday.