Projects Always Take Longer Than I Want Them To

Eventually I will be moving over to a new blog. I have a whole set up of what I'll be blogging about (yay for organization!), and I already have been working on writing blog posts. There's just some life stuff I have to take care of first. Like finals. And other things. SO. Eventually I will move and be organized, but probably not for another month. I'm hoping by June 1 I can have everything up and running and set and stuff. I'm excited about a lot of it, and a little bit hesitant about some other stuff. Which is all very vague. BUT! I'm working on it and I'm excited for the future because I know it will get better. And there are so many things to learn and watch and be involved with and experienced and there are people to get to know and ALL THE THINGS.

I hope y'all are all doing well and I can't wait to get back into an organized form of living so I can get back into the blogging world that I have missed out on for so long.

Have a good next few weeks! For those with finals, good luck!

Cooking as a College Student: Skillet Pasta

 I have been pretty much only cooking and eating my own food. As a college student without a job and very little funds I have learned to be fairly creative in what I eat. Or, how I cook what I eat, I suppose. I mostly only eat pasta. I need pasta. When I don't have enough pasta I get super cranky.

Because I'm in a dorm I cook in a shared kitchen. This can be fun, because I get to meet and talk to a lot of people I wouldn't otherwise. This can be not so much fun because the kitchen is super tiny. No. Really. I'll get a picture later and show you. It's ridiculous.

And people have commented on how my food looks/smells delicious so I decided it might be fun to share some of the things I cook with y'all. First up is Skillet Pasta!

What you'll need:

Utensil Type Things:

• Skillet (or some kind of frying pan)
• A lid for the skillet (it doesn't have to fit perfectly - mine doesn't - it just has to cover a decent portion of the skillet)
• A wooden spoon (or a metal one, I suppose - I just prefer wooden spoons)
• A cutting board and knife
• A bowl/plate of some sort
• An oven - and a working burner
• Spatula (optional)

Food Stuffs:

• Oil
• Spices (I use: rosemary, oregano, garlic salt, and sometimes basil)
• an onion (if you absolutely hate onions you don't have to use onions)
• pasta (I use angel hair or fettuccine, but any kind should work)
• pasta sauce (any kind, really - I'm using red sauce here, but you could also use vodka sauce or other things probably)
• cheese (I uses goat cheese and a bag of mixed cheese)

Be warned: I don't use exact measurements.

First: put your skillet/frying pan onto a burner and put some oil and spices inside. Turn the burner on low. This, I find, helps your skillet/frying pan to have a more consistent heat once you start throwing stuff into it.

Second: cut up some onion (however much depends on how much onion you want - usually I use two slices) and throw onions into skillet/frying pan. Only. Not literally. Throwing food around can get messy. If you have really good aim, hey, go for it. If not: just slide the onions in gently.

Let the onions cook for a little bit. It depends on how not-crunchy you want them to be. The longer you let them cook, the less crunchy they will be.

Third:  pour some sauce into the skillet/frying pan. If you aren't good at eyeballing pour in a half a cup or a cup of sauce, depending on your portion size, and see how that looks.


Fourth: time for the pasta! If using angel hair/fettuccine I find it easier to break it up. Break it in half, and then break each half into half. This makes it easier to cook. 

Fifth: add in enough water so that the pasta is fully covered. Then cover with the lid and set the timer for about ten minutes.

 


 Sixth: when the pasta has cooked for about five minutes it's time to add the cheese! The image on the right will show you about how much goat cheese I use. For the mixed cheese I put in one or two handfuls (about half a cup?).

 

 Stir until the cheese is fully melted. Put the lid back on an wait another five minutes. Make sure you uncover and stir every minute or so to make sure nothing is burning or sticking to the bottom of the pan. If the pasta is still uncooked after five minutes keep uncovered and stir sporadically until it's ready. When is ready? It honestly depends on how you like your pasta. Just keep testing the pasta until it tastes good to you. How high/low your heat is will affect how fast/slow the pasta cooks. Also, the angel hair will cook much faster than the fettuccine. 

 This is about how it will look when it's done cooking.

Seventh: when the pasta is done pour into some sort of eating container. I use a spatula to make sure I get everything out of the pan. This also makes it easier to wash the skillet/frying pan

Eighth: wash your skillet/frying pan and wooden spoon and spatula (if you used one) and lid. Now, if you're in your own house/apartment, this is none of my business and whatever. Wash your dishes when you want to. This step is for college students. If you are sharing a kitchen with anyone, if the kitchen is not your private space, then wash your dishes. This is respectful to people (*cough* like me *cough cough*) who need to use the kitchen space and don't want to have to clean up your mess. Be an adult. Be a respectful person.

Ahem.

Ninth: Eat your food! I won't go into details, because I'm pretty sure all of you (or at least most) know how to feed yourselves. If not, ask someone else for help. I can't help you with that.

I add fresh basil to most of my dishes because
I have an awesome basil plant that hasn't died yet.

What's nice about this kind of pasta is you can make all different kinds of skillet pasta. Just change up the cheese or vegetable or sauce. I will probably be sharing variances in the future.

Do you have any simple college-easy food recipes? Please share!

This is a Picture of a Chair

...

It's just sitting there.

And I keep thinking about consciousness and zombie toasters (zombie's according to Chalmers, that is) and the fact that we don't believe that inanimate objects have "consciousness" or individual identities or selves or an expressable "I."

And I think how unfair that is.

And I think of the book Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls, where the main character can hear things like stuffed animals and doors and walls and people thinks she's crazy but she's not. Because she really can hear doors and walls and inanimate objects that we say do not have identities or any abilities to communicate.

And I want to know why.

And I want to push at philosophers and make them explain to me why this assumption is in place. Is it only because you cannot conceive of it? Cannot imagine it? Because I can. So many times I feel like a book is judging me, or a chair looks lonely, or a rock feels angry, or.... Is this merely me taking my own mental states and attributing them to inanimate objects? Am I just crazy? Am I just using language and feelings in ways that only writers use language and feelings?

I don't know.

But I wish philosophers would quit saying so forcefully that they know that chairs do not have identities or personalities or "consciousness" or anything at all they are just wood and cloth and little bits of metal nails.

Because we don't really know anything - now do we?

Changes to the Blog & Growing Up

Hey LamNams!

I thought I should let you know I'm making a bit of a change:

• My blog is now: naomiruthwrites
• My e-mail is now: naomirthompson(at)gmail(dot)com [more or less - I'm still in the midst of changing that nonsense]

I'm trying to grow up a little bit and:

• Be a tad more professional
• Learn how to write better
• Learn how to represent myself better

I shall keep you updated on any other changes! I'm looking forward to see what happens for the rest of this year. There's so many possibilities!

What about you? Any changes happening this year? Any new possibilities you're looking forward to?

Have a good week, LamNams.

WriteOnCon and Stuff I Learn About Myself

So I've been running around WriteOnCon when I have time - because they are doing a PitchFest and it's super exciting. I'm working on my pitch for WhiteWashed.

And I realized how much I miss being part of the writerly world and posting in here and all I could think of was, "Dude, why did I stop?" and I realized:

Something happened. Something mysterious and I don't know what. BUT.

I didn't think I had anything important to say. It's like someone took a vacuum hose and stuck it down my throat and sucked out all of my confidence and worth as an individual self.

I don't even know. It's so not like me. I've always been fairly confident in who I am and that I have something important to say and share.

But. Something happened and all of that disappeared and I would pull up this blog - you have NO IDEA how many times I pulled up this blog - and I would stare at the empty screen waiting for me to burp words up onto and I would just think: there is nothing I can say. Everything has already been said. People have BETTER things to say than I do.

What is my life?

What if I'm just an object interacting with other objects that have the power to produce within me the feelings of a personality and really this "I" does not refer to anything at all?

But I have an amazing friend and she e-mailed me the other day and reminded me that: I can say things that are worth saying.

So. Will I blog more? I have no idea. My laptop died and won't turn back on. I don't have a job. I have no idea what I'm doing this summer. I'm taking 22 credits part of which is writing a thesis part of which is a heavy book reading independent study... And you know what. I'll tell you more about that later. Because. I can do that.

I can write in here when I want to about THINGS and about BORING THINGS and about EXCITING THINGS and I can have a sense of humor and I can not be depressed all of the time and I can not hold myself up to some weird kind of I don't know what that keeps me from doing anything and this has become one very long sentence of longness.

Now.

I'm going to go make pasta. I might tell you about it later. Because pasta is awesome.

And life is awesome.

And here is a picture of Norway:

Let's go, guys.

The Labels We Hide

I have a lot of crazy characters. And I'm not just saying that. I have a lot of mentally deranged, unstable, people. I have characters with emotional problems. I have characters that could be labeled all kinds of disorders.

Why?

Because one, I think they're interesting. But two, I think we hide our labels. We  hide our instability. We pretend we're okay and we smile and we go to class. I have multiple friends who are depressed and on meds. And they don't tell people. I had a serious emotional/mental problem last semester with anxiety and panic and depression.

But shh! Don't tell.

Our society likes to cover up crazy. Take your pills and shut up and pretend. It makes the world uncomfortable. It makes us feel like we're no in control. It's messy and it hurts and we aren't going to talk about it.

But who doesn't have some sort of problem some time?

Why do we need to hide who we are all of the time? I hate it. It's something that I truly loathe. The hiding. The fearing judgement. The fact that people either ignore that you have a problem or they treat you differently.

Why?

We're just people. We're all just people.

I haven't been blogging much. I blame it on the fact that I don't have time, or I don't have anything to blog about, or blah, blah, blah, excuse, excuse, excuse. The reason why I don't blog much, the reason why I don't read blogs like I used to, has nothing to do with that. The truth is sometimes I don't want to get out of bed in the morning. The truth is sometimes I sit all day and stare out of the window and look at trees. The truth is life is a struggle and it's hard and sometimes your brain explodes and you spiral out of control and you pick up the pieces and have to start setting up new patterns.

And it costs you. Having your brain malfunction and your mood go paddywack crazy costs you. You don't find internships on time. You don't have readership up on your blog. No one knows who you are. No one comments. And you think about how this makes you look, and you wonder what you can do, and there's all of these things that make you feel so alone in the world.

But don't talk about it.

Don't blog about it.

Pretend you're okay, find a way around it, repress it and hide it and hope it goes away.

I'm getting better. I'm making lists. I'm finishing books. I'm writing more regularly. I'm blogging a tiny bit more (not much). I'm getting back into the blog world (so slowly) and I'm preparing for my second to last semester and hoping I can still find an internship and work toward a life after graduation.

So. My characters are going to be crazy. They are going to have mental problems. They are going to be psychotic, and abused, and sick, and sometimes maybe they won't be, but most of the time they will. Because that is what I am. That is what I know. And I'm tired of it being something that is not okay to talk about.

Get over yourself, world. Face your imperfections and accept it and move on with your life.

WhiteWashed, a Pitch Fest, and The Ooze Walk Into A Bar

My brain hurts.

I just finished an entire book run through of editing WhiteWashed. This is what my brain feels like:

Like a LOST plane crash.

I'm pretty sure it will all be ready for the Writeoncon pitchfest.

Right now? This is how I feel about my MS:

It's just so pretty. There are wonderful phrases. It makes me laugh. There's some intense emotional scenes. It has poem/song things. It's so gorgeous.

And I know tomorrow it won't be so beautiful anymore.

Instead I will be thinking: "What is this baby? This isn't mine." But then I'll learn to love it anyway, just like the Hunchback.

And then eventually an agent will get their hands on it.

"Noooooo!!"

And then an editor will get their hands on it.

Only, if I should ever faint, I hope some
creepy man doesn't appear out of nowhere.

But for now:

"It's mine. My own. My Precious."

Now I just have to figure out the pitch part.

Me and Animals and How Life Taunts Me

Me: I don't really like animals.

Life: Really? You really don't like animals?

Me: Meh. Not really.

Life: *laughing evilly* So you don't like this? *sticks a wombat in my face*

Me: AWWWW. It's so cute! I want one!

Life: *bunts the wombat back to Australia* No! Wombats are not domesticated. Wombats can dig through concrete. Wombats could eat your face off and tear you limb from limb. You cannot have a wombat.

Me: Fine. I still don't like animalS. I just like A animal.

Life: Really?

Me: Yes.

Life: *laughs evilly* *pulls a quokka from behind its back* What about this?

Me: AWWWW. It's so cute I want one!

Life: *laughs manically and bunts quokka back to Australia* No! You can't have one! They're not domesticated. They are dying off and being eaten by cats and dogs and those other animals you disregard. You cannot have a quokka!

Me: *sobbing* Why Australia? Why? Why do you have such cute animals? I hate you forever!

Life: *runs off laughing in nefarious glee*

Me: *shakes fist* Oh, life, how I hate thee sometimes.