Mistakes, Whoooo!

So I made my first meal in my Dutch oven last night. It was (I my have mentioned this earlier) a maple pot roast. However, I didn't have the cut of meat the recipe demanded, nor did I have the right type of vinegar. Also, I am sure I didn't have the oven at the right temperature (thanks, Book, for not telling me what temperature to set)--350 didn't get the sauce to boil, which the recipe said it should do before I covered it, so i turned it up and that didn't work either. Soooo it kind of came out crappy. The meat was dry in the end and the sauce was too sweet--now I understand the important difference between red wine vinegar and balsamic. Although I was disappointed enough in it that I took just one bite and couldn't eat any more, my boyfriend ate his portion and mine. I know he knew it was overcooked and too sweet, but I also know that he loved that I made anything at all. So I will be trying to cook in the Dutch oven again--this time with all the proper ingredients and a better recipe.


Spring break is just around the corner! I am going home to see my family and to get some dental work done. My roomates are going to Florida and another friend of mine is in California. And I will (probably) be getting a root canal. What fun.


I wrote a haibun that I am very very proud of. It is taking a lot of courage to post it here, but if you want to read it, it's at the bottom. I've been meaning to write about this subject for a while, and after talking with one of my friends about writing and our fears of "ruining a good story," I decided to just do it.


I turned in my Technical Editing midterm today! I am learning crazy things about grammar, punctuation and all sorts of things in this class that I never knew and never thought to consider. As a writer and self-proclaimed lover of editing, I am tickled pink (amused) that I've never even heard of what dangling and misplaced modifiers are, that I don't truly know when to spell out numbers or leave them in their numeral form, and that I still mix up when to use "that" and when to use "which." What was I learning during all those years of English classes?? (That is rhetorical, I know I learned a lot.)


Aaaaand now my neighbors are stomping around, banging on drums and screaming. Not joking. I guess it's time to go meet them.


Learning lots,
Monica





Walking home: a light breeze carrying the tempered chill of winter pinches my cheeks. Ahead, above the trees, the last color of the sunset stains a small section of sky dark blue green. It is the color of tornado skies, of the ocean as I imagine it, the color I wish my children's eyes could be. The color is sexuality--it looks like an orgasm. Every bit of my body aches for it to remain. The bright obelisk of the court house clock tower burns excitingly, knifelike in the green. It is unlike anything I can describe. Even my words bring on the night.


unearthly beauty--
the things
of earth.