Sarcomical

If you liked it then you shoulda put a wing on it...er...whatever...YOU HAVE TO TRY THESE.

Last week we had a craving for wings, but didn't just want to have some greasy pile of them delivered. We wanted to make them ourselves (MYSELF, who are we kidding) and also wanted to find something not slathered in sauce so that it would be a guiltless treat for Mr. Sarcomical. Well, guiltless is relative, but anyway, at the very least I wanted something diabetic-friendly. I found the magic formula for these CRAZY DELICIOUS nosh-worthy wings on Recipezaar, and baby, I'm never going back. I'm serious. I didn't even really want to use the Frank's because they were so crispilicious. It is so easy it's scandalous. Very shake & bake-like. Now, just in time for the holidays, I want to pass the magic on to you. Enjoy!

Oven-Crisp Wings

• 1/3 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 2 teaspoons garlic salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• (I also added some chili powder for a little subtle kick)
• 3 tablespoons butter (I used a little less than this, and melted it on the pan in the preheating oven just before starting to add the wings. Make sure there's just enough to coat the cookie sheet.)
• 3 lbs chicken wings, tips removed (I only had about 1.5-2 lbs of chicken, and had *just* enough mixture in the bag, so if you do 3 lbs, consider doubling the above ingredients)

1. Cut wings at joints.
2. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
3. Combine flour, paprika, garlic salt and pepper in a shallow dish.(Put them in a gallon-sized ziploc bag! So much easier.)
   
4. Coat shake each wing in seasoned flour.
5. Line a large baking sheet with foil and melt the butter in it. Makes for easy clean up. (If you're doing more than 1.5 lbs of wings, prepare 2 cookie sheets, or you will run out of room.)
   
6. Add wings to pan and turn to coat.
7. Bake for 45 minutes, turning once during cooking time. (Because I love mine EXTRA crispy, I turned on the broiler for a few minutes after this.)

technorati tags: recipe, chicken, wings, food, holiday, delicious

The Couple, Washington Square

a slip of bitter breath cuts by
the hem of her scarlet frock
her slight cream hand slips into his
in step on cobblestone they walk

The Mysterious Case of the Returning Zonk

Well, as I sit here becoming a bit eyelid-heavy just before 10:30pm, I'm left confusedly yet happily grateful. Considering the nature of my last post detailing the misery - OH THE MISERY - of my perpetual (years, years, years) insomnia which had recently reached chipmunk-on-speed levels of debilitating alertness, I'm left only able to guess at what has happened to suddenly give me the gift of feeling a little bit more human again for over a solid week so far. And now, I'm not only getting to bed at a reasonable hour, I've also been getting up naturally early, which IS BEYOND BIZARRE for a girl for whom hitting the snooze button for an hour at a time or being completely oblivious to a herd of elephants is nothing short of typical.

Here's how this all came to be...I think:

I retreated into an information semi-blackout for just over two weeks from before Thanksgiving until last weekend. This, I believe, helped by eliminating a lot of anxiety-ridden pressure I usually numbingly obsess over. I didn't worry about writing, photo editing, replying to emails, keeping up with news or any of the things that make me feel guilty when I know the pile of responsibility has barely shrunk.

I also had just come off a very unhealthy snippet of not sleeping for about 72 hours straight, which I can confidently say is not a lot of fun unless you enjoy thinking you see shadowy figures sitting next to you out of the corner of your eye who disappear when you face them directly.

Just after this, I spent about 2 or 3 days napping during very odd hours, and I continued my hermit-like aversion to the outside world. All I knew was that I was EXHAUSTED and for once I was choosing to listen ONLY to my body and ignoring my pesky, trouble-making mind.

And then, I woke up one of those days, stayed awake for a reasonable amount of time, and wonder of wonders I found myself actually yearning for my pillow instead of feeling the typical agitation I have battled for years when it comes to dragging myself into the bedroom for hours of sleepless torture. I didn't feel that familiar urgency to stay awake and...WHAT, exactly? There has never been a logical reason for me to stay up beyond the bounds of sanity. I would rarely get anything of value done in those hours anyway, yet I felt the anxiety of needing to do something...that I was trying to catch up on something I'd failed to accomplish during the day. Or maybe I was MISSING OUT on something, some feeling of satisfaction or peace. I certainly wasn't missing anything good on television. Trust me, after 2am you just hate yourself more and more as the Roseanne episodes pile up.

I'm not really sure how long this will last, but I'm doing all I can to not fall into the old trappings of restlessness. I am hyper-vigilant to take notice of my first inclination to be sleepy and LET my mind rest.

Mr. Sarcomical's theory?

"Maybe it's like when Superman had to circle the earth really fast to make time move...maybe you finally stayed up long enough that you circled back around your body clock."

Yeah. Maybe.

No Rest for the Bleary

I have become quite possibly the world's (or at least the county's) most heinously ill-adjusted sleeper. Honestly, I thought it was bad enough when 2 or 3 a.m. became the standard, but lately it's become increasingly common for me to go to sleep around the time the annoyingly chipper local sunrise newscast begins. I then sleep about 4 or 5 hours, and the cycle begins again. Maybe it's partly exacerbated by the fact that Mr. S. is frequently out of town, and that I don't yet have any children to weaken my will in the daylight hours. This doesn't happen every night, but the occurrence existing at all is...well, to say the least...irritating.

Anyone not new here already is aware of my night owl tendencies. However, I'm starting to wonder if the only solution to this increasingly sub-human situation will be circling the clock entirely until I end up back at normal.

I'm aware enough to understand that for me this probably isn't actually a *sleep* issue, but a result of the spinning top that is my brain activity. 'Round and 'round she goes...where she stops, nobody knows. It's awful and true. I once heard that often insomnia (on the FALLING asleep end) is a result of the anxiousness created by not feeling as if you've accomplished enough during the day. Maddeningly, I know full well this is my main source of sleeplessness. Yes, I KNOW this. I'm continually battling my flawed sense of discipline and overzealous imagination. I could not be more disgustingly aware of this. And yet...

I am awake.

What sort of things am I doing between the hours of 2 and 6 a.m. on these unfortunate days, do you ask? What could possibly be worth staying up that long if one is not required to, hmm? Well, the answer to the second question is NOTHING. NOTHING IS WORTH IT. But to answer the first question...

Working Out:  No, it doesn't look quite this rad when I do it, but I have been known to unfurl the yoga mat and pull out the resistance band and weights a time or two well past midnight. Hey, if I'm going to be awake, I might as well use the time edging closer to getting into every one of my pairs of skinny jeans, right?

Watching Old Movies:  I often turn to classics to soothe my mind in those wee hours. Of course, I'm also more susceptible to achey swooning and resenting my birth date while watching my beloved Jimmy's withering gaze. Throwing in a bit of Redford's "Barefoot In the Park" buttoned-up rwawr doesn't hurt, either.

Writing Scribbling:  I seem to think I am blessed with strokes of brilliance during the wee hours. Unfortunately, little of substance is written, and much of my GENIUS is relegated to the width of Post-Its, or scribbled on notebooks spread throughout the house. So...yeah, that's pretty productive. It ends up looking much less THIS...

...and much more THIS. 

The Internet Time Suck:  I don't think I have to explain to any of you how this one works.

Reading Until My Eyeballs Fall Down:  The effectiveness of this is directly relative to the quality of the book. The problem with this is:  Big Ta-Dunk of a Book = Zzzzzz; Delicious Book = Voraciousness. Frankly, I don't think I can make myself read a snoozer just to bore myself into a coma. However, even a good book will eventually get me to the land of Nod if I'm at least in the bed.

Editing, Re-Editing, Editing:  Of course, as a photographer and debilitating perfectionist, I can get easily swirled down the soapy drain of tweaking photos for hours upon hours, and if I'm not careful I'll end up with 5 versions of each photo. This is a particularly dangerous task to take up in the middle of the night, because critical thinking is simply...well, simply squat. And after more than 4 hours editing, I begin to look slightly crazy.

Doing THIS:

(feed reader folks, there's a video here)

Writing This Post:  So, you see, if any of this seems disjointed or babbling in nature, there is a perfectly logical explanation.

Oh, people, people, people. I have tried hot tea with milk (decaf), shutting my eyes and waiting (does. not. work.), pre-bedtime bubble baths (pleasant, but not magical), Unisom (made me doped & dizzy the entire next day), relaxing music (annoyed me), white noise (less annoying), melatonin (noticed little if anything), working out like a crazy person at night (okay, this works a little bit)...the only other thing I can think of is to do each of these together and desperately hope they create the perfect storm of exhaustion that will not merely make me sleepy, but make my brain WILLING to take me to dreamland.

Insomniacs, holla.

A Universal Truth...

We walked by a few pet stores one day strolling around the West Village during our trip in October, and if one thing is true everywhere (no matter how much you detest them being in the place), it is this:  walking past a puppy nose pressed against a window without stopping is nearly impossible. This fellow didn't look like he was in an especially sunny mood when we passed him, but as I turned around to snap a photo of the street scene behind us, I caught a moment that made me smile.

All Hallows Rarity at the SarcomiHaus

We typically don't pay a lot of attention to Halloween here in the SarcomiHaus. Sure, it's nice to see the neighborhood children dressed up when they come knocking on the door, but as a standard Mr. S. and I barely otherwise acknowledge the holiday. For some reason, this year I had an impulse to stop into the Halloween superstore driving by it a few days prior. I was thinking it might be fun to get Mr. S. a wig or mask since he would be walking around with his brother and two of our nieces to trick-or-treat.

Well, what began as a quick errand resulted in me wandering aisles of smelly plastic and giant hats, placing a disoriented call to my mother discussing the merits of foam viking armor versus pirate patches, and in the end I had a wig for each of us with only a vague idea about how it was all going to come together with clothes we had in our closets. After all, I personally haven't dressed in any costume for Halloween since I was 18 or 19 years old, and I think the same can be said for Mr. S as well. The results were, well...

This venture into the world of dress-up managed to terrorize our 13-year old cat. He scurried and crouched and hid stubbornly under the bed and refused to come out until we looked like ourselves again. He completely had no idea who we were. Of course, the dogs didn't realize anything at all was out of the ordinary - BIG GIGANTIC DERRR SHOCKER. (Please ignore disgusting skanky firehose dog toy in the photo below.) I whipped off that wig and dug into a pile of makeup remover wipes within 5 minutes of the end of the treat-dispersing. (And yes, that IS a George Foreman grill behind me, yo. Grilled cheese melts away stiletto boot pain, my friends. Also, Boot Hate is probably the cause of the look on my face.)

 

One Way or the Other...

*psst - i am currently culling over 500 photos from our week in new york city and getting ready to tell you all about my trip in the place i would like to marry or at least have some babies with. until then...

Here's what I've noticed.

There are a number of similarities between the way I behave when I've had a tumbler of coffee too late in the day and the way someone behaves (not me - NOT ME, of course, oh my silly pet hahaHAAA I don't do that...ahem) when "they" have imbibed a bit more than a wee glass of wine. How so, do you ask? (THAT'S RIGHT, YOU'RE ASKING; YOU KNOW IT, DON'T DENY IT.) Well. Allow me to count the ways:

1. I talk a little faster (yes. faster.)
2. I want to call or email every single person I know.
3. I believe everything I'm thinking is rather brilliant and write down little notes all over so that I don't forget to expound upon the most creative thoughts ever thought by a human the next day. In either case, I wake typically only to find cryptic and disjointed messages, such as "kick in the butt along with other factors", "Jimmy - speed it up", "cynic. perceptive. true." and "balloons so the boxes float". (These are of course examples, heh-heh, of, you know, POSSIBLE things I would write down, uhh...purely hypothetical and not just gathered from a stack of post-its in my desk drawer..nooo way.)
4. I chat up my dogs a lot. No, A LOT.
5. I concentrate intensely with great physical might to ensure I appear completely in charge of my faculties, i.e. "no, no, I'm not hyper/tipsy, I'm totally calm/sober you see, because caffeine/wine doesn't really affect me and LOOK how deliberate all of my movements and thoughts are, no jitters/slurring!"
6. I make very unfortunate food choices (as in, YES I think I need that burrito the size of my foot, please).
7. I'm pretty sure I can feel my body vibrating a little.
8. I begin to lose my fear of singing in public. Or, at the very least, want to do it quite loudly while alone.
9. I find myself giggling. It can become annoying.
10. I start to consider both HSN and QVC unironic and even slightly soothing television viewing choices.

It's all about timing...

Last week driving back home from a trip I was compelled to pull over and take a photo of this overwhelmingly grand sky just before the colors disappeared. As I just prepared to post it, I realized that if I hadn't stopped for the couple of minutes to stand next to my car along a cornfield-adjacent highway, I would not have hit that cream kitty that jetted in front of me and only me on the very busy interstate an hour later one exit from my house (the first time I have ever hit an animal - EVER), and consequently would not have gone into a bizarre internal hysteria which made it necessary for me to hold my breath to stifle the heaving and sobbing over the next 10 minutes so I could see past my teary eyeballs and get home without wreaking MORE death and destruction and return to the four pets in my house, who had to put up with me successively crying into their furry heads after I came in, especially the cat who was brazenly laying on the kitchenette table staring straight at me damningly when I walked in.

For once, I didn't shoo him off. Effing sky.

Vintage Sarcomical: I Have No Control

*Enjoy this Vintage Sarcomical post from the original blog. I'll occasionally put up some of my old favorites here for your SUPER COLOSSAL ENJOYMENT (usually on the weekends). This one even still makes ME laugh, and was originally published October 20, 2004.
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Did I ever tell you I was briefly addicted to The Sims? Briefly as in about 2 weeks. Then I just couldn't take it anymore.

I'm sure most of you know what that game is all about. You get to control what these little computer people do, like when they shower, eat, watch t.v., socialize, sleep, etc. Then they're supposed to automatically start to maintain themselves as you go along. You get a certain amount of money, then have to get your people to find jobs so they can make money to buy more amenities. Otherwise, they start out in a hut with nothing in it.

These little people are bitchy. I don't know if I just wasn't doing it right, but here are some problems I kept running into:

1. My people never wanted to look for jobs. If I could get them to find one at first, it was a crappy one where they carpooled in a shitty car every morning. Every time I commanded them to go look in the paper for a new job they would go to the paper and a.) look at it b.) look at me c.) scowl d.) shake their heads no way. Then a little message box appeared that said "I am too depressed to look for a job now." What the hell???
   
2. Because they never had any money, they didn't have the nicest furniture. And when I told them to sleep, they'd look at me like "you've gotta be kidding me, lady", then cross their arms and say "uh-uh, UH-UH!". I guess the little pricks were too good for their bed. So they'd throw themselves on the floor, or collapse outside on the lawn. Whatever.
   
3. They NEVER cleaned up after themselves. No matter how many times I told them to do the dishes, the little jerks let the dishes pile on the floor, or wherever they happened to be, and flies gathered. I mean, it doesn't take a genius, right? Why couldn't they pick up their shit?
   
4. Their showers and toilets always leaked onto the floor. I even tried to splurge on nice facilities. I don't know what they were doing in there, but there was ranky water everywhere. And then they'd stop showering altogether, which led to...
   
5. ...They smelled. At least I think that's why the husband and wife never wanted to sit together. One would try to get all cozy on the couch, and the other would look at them in disgust and start saying something that I can only imagine was cussing and general verbal abuse. Because the other one would cry.
   
6. None of the neighbors wanted to socialize with my people after the first day or two. Probably because of the smelling and the swearing. The only thing they could do after a while was go into town and play slots at the casino. Because GOD FORBID that one of the lazy asses would get up and get a JOB for money.
   
7. And inevitably, no matter how many different things I tried, they always did what ended up pissing me off the most. They started peeing themselves. On the floor, in the yard, anywhere they felt like it. I don't know if this is because their toilets were never working or if they had become mentally unstable, but I was powerless against their urge to take a piss everywhere BUT the bathroom.
   
8. A few times one of the spouses died. I think once it was because she got so unhappy she stopped eating. And if you've ever played, you've seen what happens. A dark figure in a cloak with a scythe comes to take them away. Hello? EWW.

*At least I didn't do what my husband did. One of his ladies burned to death while she was cooking dinner.

I believe this will become one of my life lessons...

I've finally been able to pick back up with a personal project I've wanted to undertake for a while now - photodocumenting the disadvantaged in Indianapolis and the surrounding areas and the vast (amazingly, surprisingly, and largely unnoticed by the wider population) mass of non-profit organizations that serve them. I am especially touched by the children in these circumstances, and though each time I visit a new place I have to overcome a flutter of fear of walking into an unknown environment and worrying I won't be able to do the situation justice with my images, this is something I am determined to follow through with, wherever it leads. The following are just a few images from my latest trip to an after-school program downtown; I'll post more of this story on my photo blog soon.