Every damn day

If April is the cruelest month, and I'm not dissenting that, then August is definitely the strangest. It starts with the peak of my birthday and beach vacations and ends with the slump that is back-to-school. Apart from that general guideline, August seems to have a strange aura about it. The weather may get increasingly oppressive, but it threatens you with the whisper that it won't last much longer.

August has always been surreal for me, particularly with the turn to adulthood. I've had my heart broken, royally bang-up broken, twice in August. Cakes I bake fail to come out of their pans, and I squash them with my toes in the garden in fits of anger. I find myself listening to Mumford and Sons' first album with a certain amount of nostalgia and wistfulness that makes me want to weep right in the middle of driving down I-83. And it's not all bad--it's the inexplicable interweave of the good with the bad. Take this August: I got a job. I went to New York and had my birthday, and Pittsburgh, and it was fantastic, and then I came back from Pittsburgh and everyone was sick, including me. Then my mother ended up with a broken toe, I ended up in the emergency room, and earlier this week, we said goodbye to this little friend, rather abruptly.

Brandy had been licking the dirt at a friend's house as we all sat at a picnic table slurping our summer sweet corn. We thought it was funny. "You sure you never put down a salt lick here?" my dad asked (and then everyone got drunk and talked about the disco age). The next thing she tried to eat was the concrete out by the pool, making us shiver as she scraped her canines against the cement. She progressed to baseboards, bricks, and various pieces of furniture, all while refusing ground beef and lunch meat. I came back from Pittsburgh and she'd begun hiding. I read somewhere that dying people will expel everything from their bodies in any way they can, and she was certainly doing that. It was time.

Millipedes notwithstanding, I'd never seen a living thing die before. I was both dreading it and-- somehow--looking forward to it for. For the first time in my life, I wasn't shrinking back from my grief. I was embracing it, accepting it as a natural and healthy part of my emotions. I let myself cry openly, without shame. I viewed my mothers' tears with something less than the terror and vulnerability I usually feel the few times I've seen her cry. So we gripped each others' shoulders and cried.

The hardest part was watching them carry our dog out of the room, wrapped in a pink swim towel. Her eyes were still open, and that jarred me. How could she not still be alive? She looked exactly the same as she had seconds before, except she wasn't squirming. She was still warm and fluffy, and I didn't want to leave her, knowing I would never see her again. Her eyes still haunt me at night, looking right at me again and again as they carry her out of the room, all light behind them extinguished. I'm still trying to cope with that.

My mother and father and I went all together to the vet's, and afterward we went out for a stiff drink at the local bar and toasted a dog who never met a squeaky ball she didn't like. I came home, took a mild sedative, and played solitaire on my phone until I fell asleep. My first thought the next morning was that I had to get up and let the dog out, and then I remembered there was no dog. I moped around for a while. It was my mother's birthday, she was working all day and evening, and I wanted there to be something nice for her when she came home. So I packed all the dog toys and food up, sniffling, and then I made chocolate brownies with peanut butter frosting.

My mother has never met a chocolate-peanut butter combination she didn't like, and I've been meaning to try out Ashley Rodriguez's brownie recipe for ages, so that was a no brainer. We're on some kind of healthy eating kick in my household, but even more than healthy eating, I believe in celebrating birthdays, and any excuse to celebrate at all, actually. When you've only got an average of eighty years to stick around, and other lovely creatures have even less, you'd better be celebrating something every damn day.

P.S. By sheer coincidence! I never read my LinkedIn updates, but something made me today. I came across this lovely short essay, and it gave me all the feels, and said everything I could not. Especially that last line.

Bittersweet Brownies with Salted Peanut Butter Frosting
Adapted just a touch from Ashley Rodriguez's Date Night In

These really are just as bang-up as they sound, with a lovely depth of flavor, and definitely more fudgey than cake-like, which is how we prefer them in our household. I subbed in turbinado sugar for white, which lent them even more depth and a nice variation in texture, although certainly feel free to use white if that's all you have.

For the brownies:
170 grams (3/4 cup) unsalted butter*, plus more if you're using it to grease the pan
90 grams (3 oz) chopped unsweetened (baking) chocolate
175 grams (3/4 cup plus two Tbsp.) turbinado or white sugar
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
40 grams (1/2 cup) unsweetened cocoa powder
70 grams (1/2 cup) all-purpose flour

For the frosting:
85 grams (6 Tbsp) salted butter, at room temperature
100 grams (3/4 cup) peanut butter, smooth or chunky
40 grams (1/3 cup) confectioner's sugar
Splash of vanilla

Brownies:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8 inch square pan, lay in a piece of parchment paper that overhangs the edges, and grease that too. Bring all your ingredients to room temperature (this really does make a difference, so just do it. Go pay your bills or take a shower or something).

In a medium to large saucepan, melt the butter over medium to medium-high heat, then let the milk solids separate and bubble up. Keep a close watch: they will settle and begin to caramelize, and the butter will begin to brown. Swirl the butter to keep an eye on the color, and take it off the heat as soon as it begins to darken, about 3 to 5 minutes. Butter can go from a lovely caramel color to burned very, very fast. It should smell toasted and slightly nutty.

Pour butter into a medium bowl and add chopped chocolate. Let sit for one minute to melt, then whisk together. Whisk in the vanilla and sugar (don't worry, it seems like a lot, but it's not too much), then whisk in the eggs. Whisk in the cocoa, salt, and flour until there aren't any lumps, but don't overmix.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes (30 minutes was perfect in my oven), or until a tester comes out without brownie goop. Let cool completely (you can put them in the fridge to speed this up, if you want), then remove the brownies from the pan using the parchment paper, frost, and cut.

Frosting:
With a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip together the peanut butter, confectioner's sugar, vanilla, and butter until the mixture lightens in color and everything is incorporated. Frost the completely cooled brownies. Leftovers should be refrigerated. Birthday candle is optional.

*I only had salted butter on me, so I just used that and only added the vaguest pinch of salt.

To have that back

I've been doing this thing for the past few days where, after waking up around 8:30, I make a cup of coffee and then sit in bed drinking it while I peruse my emails and social networks and the food blogs I frequent. I think about the good things that have been going on, and I fill up my eyes with the morning sun (because THE SUN'S OUT GUYS OMG), and I make a rough plan of my day. If it doesn't go exactly according to plan, that's okay, but more often than not, it follows some semblance of what I originally thought. I'm aware this ritual will probably die when I have to go back to work in a week and a half, but for now, it's sticking.

I've also been writing down three things that made me happy during the day, right before I go to bed. The rule: they can't be big things. I can't write down anything about jobs, or fellowships, or earth-shattering life events. It has to be little things my senses pick up: being able to smell spring on my morning run, or the way the poppy seeds sprinkle the top of a muffin. (Apparently there's a TED talk on this? I haven't seen it, but according to a friend who did, this activity teaches us to appreciate the now, and if you keep it up for 21 days or so, you start noticing the small good in every day.)

With that, I'd like to share with you some of the things I've been jotting down:

Finding a nature trail that leads to Hartenberg Park, a new place to run.

Dying of laughter in public as I text my friend Brandon about our misadventures of middle school.

Curry noodles and snow peas for dinner.

My neighbor, who I see almost every day now, who always smiles and gives me a "hallo" when we pass each other coming into/out of my building.

Remaining with my intention in yoga; observing my emotions without judging them.

A successful time dress shopping for a ball.

Taking a walk in my trenchcoat and Sperrys and not being cold.

The best piece of red velvet cake of my life at my new favorite cafe.

Breaking out my sunglasses again.

Saturday Night Live's 40th anniversary show, complete with Norm Macdonald's Burt Reynolds impression.

My favorite student shyly asking if we could talk about her creative writing. (CAN WE?!?!)

Coldplay's "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall."

Storm clouds at sunset.

Photo booth pictures of happy couples someone dropped on the path.

And the list goes on. I've also been getting the urge to write again lately, and it's oh so pleasant to have that back in my life. It began with writing a play (my first full-length) to get some feelings out, and now one of my favorite professors is meeting with me about it when I come home for Easter break, aka I have to have the first draft done by then. But also, I was going through some old exercises I did for graduate school, and while most of them were rather dreadful, I found one that I really liked. I spiffed it up and submitted it, and that seemed to open the floodgates for more ideas. I found myself jotting down endless ideas for a new piece at lunch yesterday, and I stopped in the middle and realized how lovely it is to have that back.

Finally. There's nothing quite like sitting in your bed, drinking your coffee, looking out the window, and thinking, I've got to get to Berlin sometime this weekend. The charm of Europe, I suppose. I actually do have to get there; my program has our conference there next week. I'm looking forward to being back in my favorite city. I'm dreading the constant socialization and the panels that will last for hours. In short, I'm bribing myself there with promises of runs in the Tiergarten, coffee and cheesecake at Five Elephant, döner at Mustafa's, snakebites at Clash, and sitting on the couches at Hannibal, my favorite bar in the whole world, where I once stayed until 5 AM and once almost got run over crossing the street. For those things, it'll be worth it.

Have a lovely week. 

It's catching

I mentioned in my last post that I'm unspeakably grateful to my friends. I didn't mention the friends who don't actually know me. Ah, but I know them! They tell me all about their days and lives, from their hopes for 2015 to the espresso they brewed for breakfast this morning. I know their spouses, their parents, their children.

Lest you think by this point I'm some expat stalker, I should tell you that they're very up-front with this kind of knowledge, not just with me, but with the entire internet. These are the good people of the blogosphere, namely, the food blogosphere. They are the Molly Wizenbergs and Adam Robertses of the world.

I make a routine check-round of all my favorites once every few days, sometimes more, if I'm feeling particularly bored/lonely/hungry. In my mind, I refer to them on a first name basis--let's see if Luisa's found a new apartment yet. Fortunately, my best friend and I are very like-minded in this respect, and we'll bring them up in casual conversation this way, like mutual friends: Did you see how fast Deb's son is growing? Check out Jenny's meatloaf--tried it last night, insanely good.

Their posts and pictures are an invitation inside their lives--but a cozy invite, not a stiff, formal one, written out on card stock. In my mind, they're inviting you to their kitchen table for a cup of coffee and a chat and maybe a cookie, like you're a neighbor who stopped by. It takes me out of my own apartment, with the soaked, aggressively-dripping bath rug hanging from the heater because my shower routinely floods and there's nothing to mop it up with except said rug.

My longtime favorite was Molly Wizenberg (and if you haven't read A Homemade Life yet, you're seriously missing out), but over the past few months, I've made a slow turn to Megan Gordon, Molly's real-life friend. If Molly is my opposites-attract friend, Megan is closer to my soulmate. (Sorry Molly--I should have known when you 'fessed up to loving Bruce Springsteen and various bands I've never heard of. We can still be close, right?)

At first, I turned up my nose at Megan, her blog, and her book--whole grains? Who does she think she is, telling me how to eat? But living in a bad homestay compels you to do something--anything--instead of interacting with your host, which is how I found myself melting into Megan's writing. And I found out, Megan never tells you how to eat. She's just so darn enthusiastic about her way of life, and about life in general, that you find yourself wanting to try everything she suggests, to see if her attitude is catching.

I bought her book shortly after succumbing to her blog, and it's quickly become one of my favorite cookbooks of all time. Megan writes beautifully (and it's nice to find kinship with someone else who worked a stint as an English teacher), and her recipes are simple, but they revolutionize even the most basic of dishes. For me, oatmeal was always an "eh" breakfast: fine, but not something I'd rhapsodize over. But Megan's! It's toothsome with every bite, not mushy, with just a hint of cinnamon, and infinitely adaptable, whether you're looking for a sweet or savory breakfast. I find myself running to the kitchen to make it these mornings. (Well, running the three steps, I live in a studio.)

These days, I find myself looking forward to reading Megan's blog if I'm having a bad day or just need some cheer in general. When the weather's grey and the train from work seems to take even longer than usual and I miss home, I think to myself, let's see what Megan's up to.

I could consider writing the Book of Megan. For now, I'll just give you the oatmeal.

The Very Best Oatmeal
adapted, barely, from Megan Gordon's Whole-Grain Mornings

*Megan advises using a bigger pot with a lid for this so the oats cook more evenly. I concur, and if you don't mind making this a two-pot dish, you can toast the oats in a frying pan or skillet for maximum toastiness. You can definitely toast them in the same pot, though. Also, during the toasting step, watch and smell the oats carefully; they can go from toasty to burnt rather fast (which I know from personal experience). Even slightly burnt, though, these are still pretty damn good (which I also know from personal experience).

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 cup/100 g rolled oats
1/4 cup/60 ml milk, soy milk, or nut milk
Generous pinch of salt
Pinch of ground cinnamon
3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon/195 ml water

1) Melt the butter in your large pot or frying pan over medium heat. Add the oats and toast, stirring every so often, until they smell toasty and fragrant. Takes about 5-7 minutes. (This is the part where you want to watch for burning.) If using the same pot, empty the toasted oats into another container.

2) In your large, heavy-bottomed pot, bring the rest of the ingredients to a rolling boil over medium heat. This won't take very long, so keep your eye on it. Add the oats and gently stir, just once or twice, to incorporate them into the liquid.

3) Cover the pot and turn off the heat. Set a timer for seven minutes. Don't stir or peek! Resist temptation. Go wash your frying pan, if you used it. Set out your bowl. Get your mix-ins ready. Do not check that oatmeal. Trust me on this. After seven minutes, uncover pot and check the oats. You can recover and let them sit for another few minutes if they're a little wetter than you'd like, but I'm usually too hungry to do this.

4) Serve hot with your favorite mix-ins, sweet or savory. Megan advises a splash of cream and a little brown sugar, but my personal favorite is Nutella and bananas. To each his own.

Serves 2-3, although it's so good that I usually end up eating it all over the course of a few hours. You can reserve the leftovers, refrigerated and reheated in the microwave, but you'll want to add a little more liquid if you go this route.

To be honest

Well hello there. I don't know if this is sooner or later than you expected me to be back, but either way, it's good to be back here.

I'm sitting in the window of the Mainz Hauptbahnhof (main train station) Starbucks, drinking a decaf latte and trying not to make a face at the kid staring in the window at me. His dark, unblinking eyes are unnerving me, and I'm nervous enough already about writing this post. Shoo, German child, shoo.

I've contemplated writing this post many times; to be honest, it scares me quite a bit. I thought of writing it back in September, then October, then November, and then I went through a period where writing seemed impossible, and I decided it was best if I put it on the back burner. But, for the first time in a long time, I woke up this morning with the itch to write. What's more, I knew exactly what I would write. I've felt the beginnings of the itch for a little while, but I put it off, wanting to make sure it was sincere. It is. So here I am.

If I'm being completely sincere, I'm human like the rest of you, and I'm terrified of the backlash. I'm afraid of being treated differently, looked at strangely, getting whispers. I've always been the paranoid sort. (My nickname in high school was Nixon for a while.) But being afraid of being seen as vulnerable isn't going to get me anywhere in life, and at a time when we have more and more people speaking out about this sort of thing, it feels fitting to add my voice to the conversation. Nothing's going to get done if we don't speak up. And so, when I tell you that depression's a bitch, and it's what's been keeping me silent for months on end, what I'm doing is asking you not to look at me sideways. I'm asking you to take a cup of coffee, sit down with me, and listen. Feel free to ask questions, but do try to keep an open mind.

People have many different ways of describing depression; all of them are legitimate. In my own experience, depression is the meanest playground bully; he's the punk who takes your lunch money, then holds you in a head lock until you're gasping for breath and begging him to stop. You say anything he wants you to say so he'll let up--and he still doesn't let up. He'll sometimes let you think you're getting away, a brief respite, a moment of sunshine, and then he pulls you back into that headlock, even more relentless than before.

I've had this in my life before. If we're being more precise, I have a specific type known as adjustment disorder. Normally I'm not depressed, but particularly stressful periods of my life can send me into a tailspin of hopelessness and anxiety. And god knows I've had the stress. For a while, I chalked everything--the insomnia, the heaviness of each day, the sudden inability to focus on even a single page of a book--up to getting settled in Germany.

And then, one night in early November, I came back from a perfectly nice dinner with friends and felt desperate, like my time with them had just been a necessary distraction to save me from myself. I had a vision of sinking into a black hole, seeing only the sky above me, trying to claw the walls and realizing they were made of that slippery plastic material on playground slides. And I thought, oh, I'm depressed, aren't I. I called a therapist the next day.

I'm not telling you all this to evoke sympathy, and I'm certainly hoping I don't get the sideways look, although that's your choice. I'm telling you all this not to be a hypocrite. There's been more and more publicity on this lately, particularly when Robin Williams died this past August. In the wake of his death, a rash of articles popped up about depression, all saying basically the same thing: "We need to be more open about this." There was also a slew of statuses in every news feed I opened: "Friends, if you ever feel this way, feel free to talk to me."

 And then we stopped. Silence begets ignorance, and if we want to fight that ignorance, we need to keep this conversation open. We don't talk in whispers about cancer or heart attacks. Why do we do it with mental illness? Let's not, please. I'm not one to harp on and on about illness in general, but when we do need to talk about it, let's not say that one is more legitimate than the other, more deserving of treatment and discussion.

One last thing for today, before I let you go. The biggest thing that gave me the courage to share this in such a public space wasn't my therapist or my itch to write or any celebrity death, it was my friends. At first, I was beyond embarrassed to talk to them about my illness, to let them know that I was still emotional about events that happened months ago. I'm a capable human being; shouldn't I be over these things by now?

 I'm slowly learning not to be ashamed of my emotions, no matter what they may be. And when I did "come out," in a sense, to my friends, they were amazingly supportive. I know a lot of people say that, but it's really true in my case. There have been promises of help whenever I need it, code words indicating I need to talk about specific things, and three hour Skype sessions with lots of laughter. I'm so lucky to have such friends. I hit the friend jackpot, so to speak. You know who you are.

Let's keep this conversation open. Grab that cup of coffee, sit with me, and let's talk.