Wednesday, May 14, 2003

This morning the view of myself in the mirror made me want to run away.  When anything makes me want to run anywhere, I know I’m in trouble.  It was time to don the Outcast Outfit.  Shapeless black ankle-length dress: check.  Sweater to go over the dress, thereby covering the well-larded arms (not to mentioning warding off the sharp chill of a May day in New York): check.  Sensible shoes: check.  Bag for head: check.  Sometimes, you just don’t feel you can make the effort anymore. All this dourness and sartorial depression probably had something to do with the massive amounts of cheetos and pizza consumed at Eric’s co-worker Colleen’s house with her and fellow co-worker Amelie while watching Buffy, the second to last episode.  I don’t know if I’m more depressed that the show is ending or that I’m glad the show is ending.  The characters have become unmoored from reality and each other (Dawn happens to have a tazer?!); the characters we love have been drugged and tied to non-existent story lines, while pointless new people (“Shut up, Kennedy,”) hijack the plot; and oh look, Angel has appeared, and I don’t know if he and Buffy still have a deep connection of souls, but it does seem that all the weight she’s been losing on her path to cadaverousness he has gallantly taken onto his face.  I wish I had a guy that would do that for me.  The only upside of watching it was that it resulted in a long delicious dream that I was in a play with Anthony Stewart Head, and he was so dreamy.  Of course in the play I was playing a big strapping man with a plaid shirt and lumberjack boots, and so was understandably anxious that my boy haircut was making my face look fat, so that was a downside.  Julie’s Dreams – the new WB cult favorite.  Anyway, as I said, many trans fats were ingested, and then to top it off was Souffle a l’Orange, Part Two: Getting It Right.  I say that.  Everything happened as it should: I made the base with flour and milk and sugar, including some sugar cubes rubbed over an orange; I boiled until thick; I stirred in four egg yolks, one at a time, and a tablespoon of butter; I beat five egg whites until stiff, with a hand mixer we bought for twenty bucks at a dollar store in far Astoria, which is as big as my head; I stirred vanilla and Grand Marnier into the soufflé base, then folded in the egg whites.  I dumped it into the charlotte mold, which was coated with butter and granulated sugar.  I baked it for half an hour, sprinkling it with confectioner’s sugar twenty minutes in.  And it came out looking like a soufflé and tasting like a soufflé, but I don’t know.  I kind of liked the one we had Sunday, without Grand Marnier in it, better.  Not so into the liquor taste.  Plus I probably didn’t cook it quite long enough – the texture seemed to me not exactly right.  And then there’s that weird intimidated feeling you get cooking in someone else’s kitchen.  But whatever, it was done, and I had someone to feed it to.  So home, and to bed. And up, fat and all too aware of work awaiting me.  Ah well.   7:59:13 AM    comment []