Chicken skin

I just made some of the best chicken I have ever eaten. Ok, it was the best chicken skin I have ever eaten, although the chicken was really good too. I got the recipe out of the food issue of the New Yorker and it is so good that I would good a whole chicken just to eat all the skin. Basically you cream a ton of garlic, mix it with butter and lemon juice and then add Wishbone Italian dressing. Drench the chicken. Cook on 350 for 53 minutes, flipping the chicken and basting it twice during that time. Oh, I forgot, dump a bunch of Lawry's seasoning salt on the chicken before baking. Then, stick the chicken under the broiler, after drenching it again. Watch it until it browns, flip and drench and broil again. Absolutely amazing.

now that I'm stuffed, I'm going to go to homework, because it is a Saturday night and what else is there?
Stacia

All's fair. . .

I am so extremely tired and unmotivated. I have a 10 page paper due tomorrow and sat in front of my computer last night and came up with 2 pages. Two! That's it! It's not like I have any free time to day at all. I have things I have to do from 8:30a to 9:00p tonight. I have no idea when this paper is going to get typed. I have 2 papers due next week and a presentation I have to give. And it's not even that I don't know what I want this paper to say: I just can't seem to get it out. And I'm so tired. I'm tired and I have very little social life and have very little time for a social life. Yet, all I want is to be able to come home and just have someone hold me for a while. I don't even have time for that, which is ok, because I don't have anyone for that either.

I still love to TA though. However, one of my students had to drop out of school because his unit got called up, probably to Iraq. He's a really good kid and he's taking it all in stride. His greatest fear is that Kerry will be elected president and abandon the troops over there with no funding or equipment. He really wants Bush back in the White House. This is the first person I know who will be going to Iraq.

well, even though it's 6:45a, I have work I need to do.
Stacia

I'm Free!!!!!

I just got some of the best news ever! My ex-husband got remarried this weekend!!!! I'm free! No more worrying about him hunting me down. No more looking over my shoulder to make sure he's not there. No more nightmares that he's standing at the end of my bed. Maybe I can even go into Wal-Mart. Dare to dream! He has officially moved on and hopefully he will never, ever think about me ever again. I hope she's a nice girl and I hope they are very happy together. I hope they are married forever! I'm so excited that I'm going to go to my homework.

Stacia

School sucks

It's only the beginning of the second full week of school and I'm already exhausted. I'm already looking at everything I'm supposed to get done and shaking my head in disbelief. Why am I doing this? Maybe history should just be a hobby that I do in my spare time, because making history my profession is leaving me with no spare time. Good news: the final draft of that damn paper is getting turned in tomorrow. But I'm sure something else will be due soon enough.

Moving on to even happier things. Well, although the weather is finally beautiful, summer is pretty much over and with it, the chance that I might actually meet someone and start something. With school back in, there is no time and I'm crazy now anyway. Anyone interested in me during the school year has some serious psychological problems and should probably be avoided at any costs. I'm greatly disappointed. I really thought this was going to be my summer. I guess I was wrong. Nothing unusual. Well, I hope he's not out there, because now the answer would have to be no until next summer anyway. Oh wait, I'm going to be in Russia doing research next summer. Guess that means no until I'm finished with school because after next summer I'll be in various places around the world until my dissertation is finished. And I really don't think anyone would be willing to wait around five years for me. I know I wouldn't.

back to reading the history of the entire world, person by person,
Stacia

Dreams and other realities

I dreamt about Amanda last night. A very strange dream. She was there, but there was not much interaction, but like Amanda herself, all was needed in the dream was her presence and therefore, the dream was about her. The dream made me realize how much I miss Amanda. Amanda is one of the most real people I know. She feels and write in a spectrum of colors I am incapable of dreaming of. Her emotions experience more than I could ever realize. Amanda is beautiful and sexy and sexual. She is a big girl, but I think she has to be. She feels and lives on so many levels, she needs her bigness to hold it all. I am tiny and this makes me feel like I will explode with all the things going on inside me; like I can't hold it all. Yet I read what Amanda has written and wonder how she can hold it all it all within her. Sometimes, I wish that just for a moment I could crawl inside her, just to experience even a fraction of Amanda. I know she has experienced more pain and loss than I would ever want to go through, but it has made her more aware of life, beauty and futility, in a way that allows her to live and express, regardless of what others think. Therefore I respect her, envy her, love her and right now I really miss her.

I had my first TA sections on Wednesday. Everyone repeat with me: they are babies and you are their TA. Yes, there are a few very pretty ones, but I really don't have time to babysit. Two of my sections are very talkative, the other two, not so much. I really enjoyed the first week though. We will see how it goes. Hopefully better and better.

Back to the paper, which is due Tuesday, so then I can get on to prelim stuff,
Stacia

Scavenger hunt

Classes started on Thurs. I had sociology, which looks like it will be fine and then I had to sit in on lecture for the class I'm TAing for. I got there early and sat in the front row. This gorgeous, although probably 21 year old, at the oldest, boy walks in, scans the half empty room and sits next to me. He starts chatting me up and I can see my advisor watching and laughing. This guy finally asks if I've bought the books for class yet. I reply I'm the TA, so yes, I have the books. He mumbles something about being a TA and then turns and basically ignores me the rest of the class. Have to admit it was kind of funny. I also got carded on Friday because this lady honestly thought I was under 21. I guess that's good.

So I'm having a slight identity crisis. Of course I'm a student, but I'm not the smartest student, or the most motivated. I enjoy it, I'm glad I'm going to school, I'm glad I'm a student. But I feel like I have no identity as a woman. I mean a sexual identity. Regardless of all the babies that seem to be attracted to me, I don't want to be a mom. I want a man, like a full-grown one, with a job and life separate from mommy. One who knows sex does more than just get one off. I don't even feel like I have any leads! Maybe one will fall in my lap. With my luck, it'll be in about 3 weeks when school is stressing me out so bad I'll feel like a crazy woman. That might be when I need a man the most, but I won't be at my most attractive.

I should take a moment to wish my nephew, Phoenix, a happy one year birthday! It was Thursday, but since he can't read, and no one in my family reads this, it doesn't really matter. Mom said he is now standing without holding onto anything, but not walking yet. Should be soon. She also said he can say nana, so she began to refer to herself as nana. Must of worked because she said he only says it when he wants her to pick him up. Very smart!

Finally, Amanda, if you're reading this, you should invest in some Anais Nin literature. Her erotica is really good, but her other stuff is even better. Stuff like The Sealed Room, Under a Glass Bell, House of Incest, Winter of Artifice, and others. Everytime I read her, it reminds me of you and your writing. I think you would really like her. Let me know.

Stacia

I'm a TA!

I'm getting really excited about being a TA. We had really boring TA training on Monday and I got my office key and my health benefits and my contract. I'm getting paid more than I thought, which is good. I still haven't been to my office yet, and I share it with 4 other people, so I'm probably going to be stuck with the bad desk in the bad spot with the bad computer, but that's ok. My mom got all excited and she wants a picture of the 3x5 index card with my name and office hours on it that will be outside my office door. I've done some of the reading for the first two weeks of class and I'm already coming up with questions for the first week, which will be the hardest. I have to memorize all those names! I have four sections with 18 people in each of them. Today, besides working on polishing that paper (see previous blogs) I am also going to work on the syllabi for my sections. Mostly it will be class policy, grading, my office hours, e-mail address, ect., but also what I expect out of the students. I really hope I'm good at this.

Stacia