So from now on, head over there for your Ordinary Goddess bloggy goodness and change any links accordingly. In a couple of weeks, this blog will be going the way of the dodo.

Also, the look is likely to change quite a bit over the next few days as I play around with it. Don’t pay it no nevermind.

John Edwards’ 2008 campaign is the first presidential campaign I’ve ever worked on, so it’s hitting me much harder than I realized it might. I really do believe that he’s the best person for the job. so to know that he’s not going to get the chance (at least, not this time) is very upsetting.

I don’t have a second choice, because I REALLY do not trust either Clinton or Obama. I would love to see either a woman or an African-American in the White House, but not these two. So I’m not sure how I’m going to vote on February 5th. I may still vote for Edwards, just because I believe in him so much and I’m so opposed to the current front runners. Or, just to be pissy, I may vote for Mike Gravel. He hasn’t dropped out yet, he’s on the primary ballot and I actually like a lot of what he has to say.

Still won’t be the same, though.

I’ll miss ya, John, I really will.

“I just eat before watching.” It really does help.

As a consequence, however, I find myself wanting to cook more often. I’ll see a recipe that inspires me and decide that I need to do something similar RIGHT NOW! If I don’t, I’ll feel slightly uneasy until that itch is scratched.

As a result, at the beginning of January I made my first homemade soup: a hearty vegetable/mushroom soup.

While I know that stock is easy to make, I decided to use the boxed vegetable stock, as I was too impatient to wait for hours. I wanted to taste my inaugural soup within two hours. And I did. I’ve got to say – it was damned good. Lots of veggies, three kinds of mushrooms, lots of herbs and aromatics (including an entire head of garlic – half sauteed, half crushed into the soup as it simmered for an hour – and a big ol’ onion) and a lot of freshly ground black pepper. It was one of the best things I’ve ever made. And the recipe was wholly my own.

The next day I experimented with combining eggs with potatoes in a kind of frittata. It’s something HSTeacher has made for me in the past (quite well, I might add) and it just sounded good. So in with the garlic and onion and black pepper and cheese and such. Once again, most yummy.

An episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay – in which muffaletta was the featured dish – made me crave an olive salad sandwich. Days later I finally purchased the desired ingredients (my own recipe again) and chopped and mixed to my heart’s delight. By itself the salad was heavenly. Perhaps not quite muffaletta grade, as I used mayo and mustard (which I understand is a huge no-no), but still excellent, with a nice balance of creamy (mayo) and salty (three kinds of olives) and tart (mustard and chopped dill pickle). I even added my personal cooking staples: onions and garlic, this time so lightly sauteed in extra virgin olive oil (not EVOO, so shut up, Rachel Ray) so as to be barely cooked. Yummy cubed.

Unfortunately, in a sandwich with toasted 12 grain bread, red leaf lettuce, tomato and provolone? Not so good. Quite bland, in fact. The tomato was a bit on the watery side and that overpowered the salad in a way I didn’t think was possible. And the lettuce added absolutely nothing. Next time? Just the salad, please.

I wonder what I’ll be raring to cook next…

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

You sure do love the spotlight and probably have a very out-going and loud personality. Or not. That’s just a stereotype, of course. Participation in the theatre is something to be very proud of. Whether you have a great voice for musicals, or astounding skills for dramas/comedies; keep up the good work. We need more entertainment these days that isn’t television and video games (not that these things are bad, necessarily.)

My class is Mondays and Wednesdays until February 13th, so twice a week for the next five weeks is sure to help out. And I think I’m going to put myself on standby for JPL’s Dynamic Strength Training class (Tuesdays and Thursdays) so maybe I can get back on track as far as fitness goes.

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I gotta say, I’m very happy that 2008 is here. While 2007 started out most fantastically, somewhere around half way through, sucking commenced. Most of it was financial, some of it was relationship and friendship related, some of it was health related and some of it was old depressive ghosts coming back to haunt.

Over the last four months I’ve had a lot of spinning around in place because I’ve been so mentally overwhelmed by issues that I didn’t know what to do next. And I’m battling things that leave me utterly perplexed about their outcomes, because I’m not the only person involved in resolving these problems, yet I may have to force resolutions at some point. I’m not very good at handling uncertainty and uncertainty is all there is for the foreseeable future. By association I’ve become a puppet in someone else’s sociopathic games, which infuriates me because the person who is direct line of this sociopath’s actions certainly doesn’t deserve it, but there doesn’t seem to be anything concrete I can do to help. And I sure as hell don’t deserve it either.

It doesn’t help that this past holiday season has made my top five list of Worst Holiday Seasons Ever. I would probably put it at #2, actually (2002 still holds the #1 spot, for the sheer family fuckery of the entire year). I’ve felt as if I were an afterthought to some of those close to me, both of the family and not-family variety. I don’t handle that well either.

And I’m just very tired of financial scrambling – no matter how hard I try to get back on my feet, I can’t seem to quite get there.

I’m just tired. Tired of eyes filled with tears. Tired of the pain. Because right now, my heart hurts. My mind hurts. My soul hurts.

Here’s hoping the tai chi I’m starting today can help with some of that.

And here’s hoping that 2008 will get better. Because I’m going to try hard with a vengence.

While I watch a fair bit of TV, and even like some of it, there’s only one series currently on air for which I have an unbelievable amount of love: Scrubs. It’s crazy, loopy, corny and humanistic all at the same time and, even when it’s not very good, it’s one of the best shows out there.

It’s also got some great songs woven throughout the series, one of which is above. Scrubs has got to be commended for bringing Colin Hay back into the American limelight. Granted, in his Men at Work days, I liked his work well enough, but didn’t think much about it. However, Hay’s acoustic renditions of Beautiful World and Overkill are fantastic. I can hum/sing Overkill for days on end. And I have.

However, Beautiful World hits me in an unexpected place. The first time I listened to the lyrics I teared up, thinking about how sad it was that the protagonist of the song was merely settling for less:

And still this emptiness persists.
Perhaps this is as good as it gets.

That used to kill me.

But not now.

Somewhere over the last few weeks I listened to Beautiful World and thought, “Maybe he’s not settling for less. Maybe he’s just finding the joy in the little things.” And I brightened up a little.

Because sometimes the little things? Are the only places a person can find joy.

Silly sweet TV shows. Beloved music. Frightfully gorgeous musical movies. Stunning sunsets and landscapes. Staring out over the rolling ocean waves. Stroking and scratching kitties and puppies. Cuddling. Laughter.

The big things? Can disappear in an instant. Break a person’s heart. Make a body wonder why and where and when. Can come close to destroying someone who never saw it coming.

But the little things? They’re nearly always constant. They can usually be found even in the worst of times, if only for brief moments. Even after nights that are straight outta Overkill – nights where the thoughts and fears over the big things are so overwhelming that one is literally immobilized, uncertainties turning into terrors, the sneaking suspicion that one’s mind is just broken and why won’t it shut up, shut up, SHUT UP and let you sleep? One doesn’t want to take the pill, because it’ll just prove that you’re not as strong as you thought, not as strong as you used to be.

But one needs to sleep. One needs to calm the ghosts, however briefly, knowing that they’ll just come back again soon, and fall asleep in the arms of one’s love.

Because the little things? Will also return. And they’ll bring joy again.

As y’all know, I fully support the writers in the strike, but I do miss the humorous insight of my pretend boyfriend Jon. Too bad I don’t have a basement…

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So I saw Sweeney Todd last night. As I suspected, I didn’t hate it or find it badly done. Tim Burton and company did a fine job. Was it perfect? No. As a Sondheim fanatic who’s worked on two productions of the show and for whom Sweeney Todd is my second favorite musical (Sunday in the Park with George is #1, also by Sondheim), the chances of me finding absolutely nothing wrong with it is pretty slight.

But it was very faithful to the source material, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter – if less melodramatic in the roles than I’m used to – still did well, both acting-wise and singing-wise. Alan Rickman was, of course, fantastic (then again, in my eyes it would be difficult for him to do wrong). I didn’t care much about the young lovers Anthony and Johanna, but I rarely do anyway – that’s nothing to do with the actors. At least the actress playing Johanna actually looked like a teen – rarely a given.

All of the other characters were nicely acted (including Sasha Baron Cohen as Pirelli). Plus recasting Toby as a child (instead of the simple minded adult in the stage version) worked well and added a chilling dimension to certain scenes. The child actor playing Toby (Ed Sanders) was terrific.

I loved the cinematography and set design, as I tend to do with Burton’s movies, and the way the musical was made purely cinematic pleased me to no end. And the ending? I know this musical like the back of my hand and I was still on the edge of my seat. Well done.

My issues with the movie are actually quite minor. One or two scene transitions could have been more creatively done (especially with an early scene where Sweeney is singing about the past, which then brings us to the past) and there was some graininess in some of the later scenes, which were especially dark. I also had some problems with the loss of some songs and lyrics. In most of the instances I understood why the songs and lyrics were cut (though I felt that, in one instance – the first scene with Anthony and Johanna – it hurt the scene a bit), but I missed them nevertheless, especially since it would have meant that I got to see Christopher Lee sing. Long-time readers know I’ve been a Chistopher Lee fan since I was five.

Still, I’m happy that Anthony Stewart Head still had a cameo, even if his original role as the Ballad Ghost was cut. Sondheim himself was very much involved with the production, which helped to keep it on track. And the thing that makes me really happy about the movie? Having Johnny Depp as the lead will insure that people who are not familiar with Stephen Sondheim or his music will see this and, perhaps, discover a whole new world of brilliant music and lyrics. Since this was a faithful and handsomely mounted adaptation, that can only be of the good.

The movie opens tonight in general release. Go, Sweeney, go!

Oh yeah, THAT’S what I’m talking about!

Off to do a little “Yippee!” dance…