Hunger

For the past few days, or, to be more precise, weeks, I've been constantly hungry. Chocolate was replaced by creamy sundaes (even more sinful!), dried fruits, and now, oatgurt.



I made oatgurt as an experiment. It's a bit, uhm, tasteless, but I guess I'll have to get used to it. It's rich and quite yummy with milk, bananas and a little bit of sugar.



Try it!

Things that infuse me with satisfaction

- the feeling of being organised;

- the feeling of having accomplished something;

- buying yellow tulips;

- being able to read in a cold kitchen without a heater on.

Troubleshooting in New York

On Saturday I received a package from New York.

New York???

New York!!!

Ok, let us skip the illogical cheerfulness of the post-soviet upbringing (re: mine) that contains remnants of the long long times ago when anything from The West was a miracle itself, but I just could not help it. Right.

So, the package containted a book “Troubleshooting” by Molly Young (my fav blogger) and Chris Luxton.





First impressions (method of associations, the beauty of the miracles of our mind, imho):

Cleanness

Cherry-blossom

Childhood

Silence

Strawberry ice-cream

Photos made by film camera

Summer laziness

I have not read it all, and am not intending to, at least for the meantime. This is a kind of a book that I keep on my night table immersing before sleep, covered under few wool blankets, allowing myself to digest only a few snippets of it.



It’s impressionism in its most successful and attractive form, I dare say. Short stories, accompanied by pictures/images, that are meant to traverse your orbit and leave with a feeling something has just happened, it was so quick and therefore magical.

It reminds me of M. July's “No one belongs here more than you” which has a bright yellow cover and which I, absentmindedly and due to baggage restrictions, did not bring here. Thinking I will not need it. Well, I was wrong.

I have an equal substitute now. I am not equating Molly and Miranda, I am equating a very subjective feeling every book evokes, and this time Molly’s and Miranda’s worlds resonate. For me.

I like to turn over the pages and stop at one story, then move back/forth for a random number of seconds and see if the title of Molly’s snippet and Chris’s pictures align with what I’ve already read. Surprisingly, in most cases they do.




The power of associations. Or a gift/curse of wild imagination.

Thank you, Molly. My apologies for such an unprofessional and scattered review/feature.

Resurrection

Ezekiel's vision. Engraving by Giorgio Ghisi, after a painting by Giovanni Batista Bertini (mid-1550's).

When I was still active on MySpace- and that was not long ago- people used to send animated greetings on various occasions- Valentine's day (sparkling hearts, hugging bears), Christmas (Santa Claus, of course, Christmas trees, of course, snowy illustrations etc.). Once during Easter I received a picture of zombie- Jesus. I became terrified and deleted it.

And this image, which I found in one of my readings for the session about the body, somehow brought me back to the image of zombie Jesus. After all, Christianity (and all religions/faiths) is all about transcendence.

And some seem to perceive transcendence in really creepy and terrifying ways. But I guess that's what transcendence is- you step into the Unknown, you freak out, you have nightmares. And consequently you create something like it.

I am really genuinely curious whether Bertini used to have nightmares while painting this scene.

Yes.

This is genius.

Food

I am not the person who's always ready for experimenting. I prefer The Known for the risk of Failing. This might be a huge flaw in terms of life choices, but that's not the case I want to refer to.

I am not prone to experiment on:

cooking;

daily hygienic routine.

However, this evening proved that the result of cooking equates with a successful outfit- the one that's not over-thought, and for me it works the best when it's a result of spontaneity. Spontaneity aligned with the influence of good mood (re: good mood- feeling inspired, this can occur quickly for me),

My dinner is uber-simple, pasta with mushrooms and tomatoes, but tonight it's in a perfect condition- pasta not too tough, mushrooms not overstewed. Whereas the chicken that I anticipated for the whole week turned out rubbery, vegetables- burnt, sauce- total failure.

My mental image of a perfect dinner did not correspond to the outcome due to my inexperience with stir frying and general tiredness that evening, I guess.

The joys of coffee

Today was a lucky day in terms of buying coffee. First of all, I always feel guilty for buying take-away cofee because: 1) it's expensive; 2) I can make it myself at home [but not that good, I admit]. But this time I couldn't resist- it was cold, and, well, I hadn't had coffee for quite a long time.

And... it was surprisingly good.

Now I am thinking. Was this because of the period of time I hadn't had coffee, or was it really that good?