Sleeping In

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The Best Banana Bread/Cake Ever

Josh and I can't decide if this is banana bread or cake. Whatever it is, it's the best and it's made with whole wheat flour so it's practically a health food. 

I'm going to share my recipe (adapted from several other recipes so now I can call it MINE ha!) because I think everyone in the world would fall in love with this bread/cake and it has the potential to create world peace. I'm just saying, try it for yourself.

(I would have put up a picture but Josh and I ate the pieces that were out already, and the rest is in the freezer to microwave throughout the week for an instant slap in the face of happy.)

Banana Bread/Cake Amazement

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened (*Note: it has to be butter, none of that margarine atrocity*)
1 1/2 cups sucanat (never heard of sucanat? Look it up. It's your new bff. I use it as a sugar replacement.)
2 eggs
1 cup mashed bananas (I use 2 bananas. I mash them up by hand, this works and tastes better if they are very ripe and mushy. )
4 tablespoons buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour (I've never tried it with just ww flour.)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt (Celtic sea salt is preferable. jk I don't have Celtic sea salt. you can buy me some, though.)
1/8 teaspoon baking soda

1. Preheat oven to 325 F. (Note: My oven gets super hot, so you might need to put yours to 350. experiment, that's what I had to do.) Grease a bread loaf pan, or brownie pan, or muffin tin, or whatever. I use the same pan I use to make brownies in, I don't know what this is called. It's glass? lol 

2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sucanat together with a mixer. It's not really going to cream like regular sugar and butter does, but it'll make the sucanat look moister, yet still grainy. 

3. Add eggs, bananas (remember, mashing by hand is the best. I don't know why. It feels cool and it distributes the banana more evenly), buttermilk and vanilla until the batter is well mixed (a lot of recipes say to mix until "just combined"...this is not one of those recipes. Mix the hell out of that batter!)

4. Add in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix until well combined (again, mix the hell out of it).

5. Divide batter into pans (or whatever) and bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until a fork comes out clean.

6. Lick the bowl, spatula, mixer, whatever...before washing them. Trust me, it's the best part, and don't listen to Josh; you will not get sick from the raw egg. (And if you do it could be worth it. It's delicious.)

Tell me if you make it!

Things I Will Be Cooking Soon

I've been neglecting this blog. I will continue to do so by creating a non-post containing links to other blogs to make up for the lack of writing in this one. :D

These are some things I will be cooking soon! Enjoy. 

Healthy Chicken-Zucchini Alfredo

Except, I'm subbing the zucchini for broccoli cause broccoli is basically one of the only vegetables Josh will eat. ;)

Cowboy Spaghetti

Because I love Josh.

Broccoli Cheddar Biscuit Muffins

Because what's not to like?

Roasted Potatoes

Because to Josh, this counts as a vegetable.

Chocolate Clafoutis

Because I have the little baking dishes now! Yay thrift stores!

Breaded Garlic Chicken in Lemon-Butter Sauce

Because this looks sooo easy, and I have chicken that I bought on sale to use up!

Minestrone Soup

Because fall is in the air and I have an excess of dried beans! :D

And so the school year begins.

And I'm already tired. This is not a good sign!

This semester started off in a very traumatic way. Sunday night Josh and I learned that someone we knew had committed suicide. This is a situation I've never been in before. To say it was devastating is putting it lightly...I can't even say I was close to this person, he was a friend of a friend, but I'd hung out with him and knew how much he meant to certain people I care about. For that and reasons I will just never understand I took it very hard. Actually, I didn't know how to take it...I was so confused, so lost. 

I've had my generous share of emotional problems in the past, and will have tons more in the future...but I realize now never did I truly grasp the concept of suicide until this instance. I was in one instance the two year old who felt robbed because she knew the face behind the peek-a-boo scarf wasn't coming back, and at the same time the grown-up who didn't understand why the face wasn't popping back up again when she continuously lifted the scarf. It was gone, and would never come back. 

Permanence has hit me like a boulder. Permanence, before learning about the suicide, was some sort of a ghost...a phantom word. Now I know I didn't understand what permanence truly meant. I'm still trying to figure it out. Even more mind-boggling, how one could leap into such permanence, so blindly and unknowing of what's to come. It's so scary. I believe it takes a lot of faith to leap into such permanence. Faith in what, I don't know. 

My mind is still all over the place. The first day after I found out I found myself eating life by the barrel. I ate so much. I saw so much. I questioned so much. I experienced so much. I wasn't even doing a lot but I experienced more than I think I ever have. Just by taking a shower, watching a tv show, lighting a candle. Everything seemed to take more weight, more importance. It asked for more validation and more acknowledgement. I felt as if I experienced my whole life in a single day. And now I am so tired and feel so old. I'm still so confused by the whole concept of everything and what it means...and am so incredibly tired. 

I'm the type to internalize things too deeply, to the point where it wears me out. I need to figure out a way to balance this.

What?!

I'm back! Maybe. Who knows these things...I go through phases.

I start my MFA program on Monday. That's a day away. Pretty close. Surprisingly not nervous yet, but that's probably because my first class is MexAm Lit and not a workshop...that's when I'll get nervous. I'm probably also not nervous yet because I got a job at Gymboree Play and Music Center, and tomorrow I'm teaching my very first music class and am terrified. I'm already teaching art classes and School Skills classes (a 2 hr drop off class), and I'm good with those two (of course it's always more fun when I'm not being bit on the leg by new little toddler chompers...so sharp!)...but music is different. First of all, you have to learn new songs each week to demonstrate, and...well, that's actually the only difficult part. But those songs are hard to memorize sometimes. Whose ever taught me a song about a mosquito? Nobody. Exactly. But now I know one. 

This past summer has been the summer of cooking. So much cooking. I've never cooked in my life. I was raised on Whataburger, McDonald's and Luby's (boobies! Shoutout Jess). I don't know how I'm alive. But I am and don't weigh 500 pounds! Now that I have my own kitchen though, I've found myself super into natural cooking. The internet has been my best friend and taught me so many things about traditional foods, why white sugar is a no-no and all the better-for-you alternatives, why natural living naturally goes together with natural eating, and why sometimes the simplest recipes are the best.

(Trust me, if I can not only cook but cook good, natural, traditional foods...ANYONE can. I made cookies with no sugar, yo! And Josh ate them all up! Okay, I helped him. A lot.)

So our apartment is now a no-high-fructose-corn-syrup, no-canola-oil, no-vegetable-oil, minimal-white-sugar, no-white-flour apartment! Yum. 

Oh and I discovered a great love I have for peaches. 

BY the way...go buy some soaps from here...support them. They are amazing. Their soaps are amazing. 

Remember that no-poo experiment I tried doing last semester? It failed miserably. My hair hated me. It seemed to congeal into one big mound of nasty. But I was determined to make this work. Every time I squirted shampoo into my hands I could hear my head crying. CRYING. 

So I researched more on it and found the solution...I'd been doing it all wrong. I'd been mixing baking soda and water as is...turns out I had to boil the water and THEN mix the baking soda in. (1 tbs bksda to 1 cup wtr) That did the trick. Now my hair is squeaky clean all the time and I never have that weird gunk. And I haven't used shampoo in over a month. A MONTH. And my hair smells like NOTHING. So, it works. Case closed.

Oh, guess what I also haven't done in over a month? This might be TMI, but whatevs. I haven't used deodorant. I promise I don't smell. I've been around people occasionally when I'm not sequestered in my apartment, and they don't lean away. Instead of icky, commercial underarm swiping, I use...coconut oil. No, really. I do. 

Okay, I know I've turned into a hippie. Stay with me.

I use coconut oil, and then a mix of baking soda and cornstarch. IT WORKS. No smell, no nasty scents to mix with my body chemistry and produce an even nastier scent. I use the refined coconut oil, so it doesn't even smell like coconut. But to my understanding, if you use unrefined, it does smell like coconut.

Okay, I'm going to stop now. I think I'm overloading with all my new hippiness. 

Nap time! I was supposed to take a nap an hour ago, but then the dirty dishes started screaming. I can't nap with all that screaming.

Okay, bye.

A week and a day!!!!!

It's only a week and a day until I say goodbye to UST! And with all the stress that's been surrounding me here lately, it can't come at a better time. But I won't go into that. . . I'll go into my scenes for playwriting instead!

For our final portfolio we have to turn in a 10 minute play, a monologue, and a dialogue. I'm pretty much done with all of them, just putting the final touches. My dialogue is something I'm revamping that I've worked on in the past. It's a conversation between two boys who have to make the decision to kill a dying cat to put it out of its misery. The monologue is given by a 40-some year old Denny's manager who is absolutely obsessed with the amazing-ness of her job and is trying to convince a young waiter how lucky he is to work at Denny's. In reality, she is incredibly unhappy and dissatisfied with the way her life turned out. 

The 10 minute play follows 4 characters: Peter, Jake, Rebecca, and Robin. The piece is basically a commentary on today's society's need to accomplish something memorable. I'm a bit unsure as to whether enough happens in the play, but at the same time, the focus of the play is that Jake wants to "Do" something important, but really accomplishes nothing in the play. Rebecca can almost be seen as Jake's historian--she follows him everywhere to take pictures of his "Do-ing", but in reality, the pictures are evidence that nothing ever gets accomplished. Peter always seems dumbfounded by the whole "Do-ing" aspect, and doesn't know where to fall. But in reality, in the end, he and Robin together "Do" more without even trying. . . they end up "accomplishing and Do-ing" by having a great moment together, talking and revealing more about themselves. The play ends with Peter reciting a poem he wrote (I'm not sure if this is a cop-out on my part since I'm a poet and not a playwriter, but whatever) that is within the same vein ramble given earlier by a drunk Jake. The ramble, however, was nonsensical and meaningless, whereas Peter's poem is effective and moving. It "Does" something. 

To juxtapose the two, here is the scene of the ramble with Jake:

    PETER

But I don't want to fuck Robin. I mean, well, not right now.

    (Peter seems to consider this for awhile.)

Jake, do you really think you're going to be famous?

    JAKE

Fuck, man. You're such a downer.

    PETER

I'm sorry. You know, I listened to some of those tapes you made. . . the ones you made when you were high.

    JAKE

Oh yeah! Was your mind blown?

    PETER

Uh. Well. I dunno. You sorta just went on about trees for a half hour.

    JAKE

Dude, you totally didn't get it. Look. . . we breathe trees, right?

    PETER

We don't really breathe trees. . . I mean, they give off oxygen. . .

    JAKE

Whatever, we breathe trees. So it's kinda like we're fucking them, like when you're fucking a girl and you start breathing in the air she's huffing out. And it recharges you cause it's so hot and sexy and it makes you feel alive! It's like we're fucking trees all day long! Can you picture it? All these people just fucking trees all day long!

    PETER

Uh. . .

    (Jake jumps up off the ground, grabs his acoustic guitar, and screams.)

    JAKE

Fuck, take me somewhere. I gotta get out of here.

    PETER

What?

    JAKE

Drive me somewhere! Blindfolded! Anywhere. Take me somewhere and drop me off so I’ll have no choice but to do. So I have no way of getting back. 

----

Okay, so here's the scene with Peter at the end of the play that comes off that rant.

    ROBIN

Okay. Actually. . . I'd like to hear one of your poems. You know, if you don't mind.

    PETER

Really?

    ROBIN

Yeah.

    PETER

Well. . . okay.

    (Peter reaches into his pocket and pulls out a miniature notepad. He flips it open.)

I guess I'll read you this one. I wrote it yesterday. It's called Tree, but I don't really like that title. I might change it. Okay. . .  

In a way, you are a tree.
The scars on your arms are initials

carved by lovers too young
to realize it’s all red wine in a cup

drunk slowly to forget the plastic.
Your hair is willow strands after a storm,

strung and stuck together like wet
ropes my fingers comb and separate

until my skin sweeping your hair screams
like the Sharpie you always carry,

almost dry as you continue to push
onto the envelope to write the address

of a city you’ve never been to, but one day
you’ll root your feet and eyelashes and sap

into that city’s soil, which we’ll call my breath. 
I will add to your rings, and your body

will tangle into me, the sweetness of mulch
in the air everyone considers rotten.

    (Pause.)

I don't know. I don't know if it's any good.

    (Robin leans over and puts a hand on Peter's thigh. Lights fade.)

----

I'll be the first to say that I'm not happy with the ending (Robin putting her hand on his thigh and the lights fading). But I'm at a loss as to where to go with it. . . so for now, that's the ending. For now.

lol way to update, Walker.

Yes, indeed. I have been absent.

I wish I could say I have been busy...and I have...but that wouldn't be a real excuse. I think what's to blame is Netflix. :D It's AMAZING.

Anyway...the best update of all...I'm going to UH's MFA program in the fall. ?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!! WHAT?! OMG! WHAT?!

Yes, that is all. Very excited and very terrified, but feeling incredibly happy about it all.

I've been interviewed by someone at UST's PR dept. about myself! They will try to get the article into Houston Press! Indeed! Here are the questions! Exclamation! Exclamation!

I understand you've recently had a battle with anorexia. Can you tell me a little bit about that experience and how you overcame it? What have you learned from that difficult time?

My struggles with anorexia nervosa began when I was fourteen. It was a result of many different things. In a big way, I used the disorder as a way to isolate myself from the world, and to build my own world I felt safe in. I made my own laws, my own expectations, my own social stigmas--for myself. I think it was my way of telling everyone: something isn't right. A lot of things were going on in my family at the time, and I was still expected to be perfect and successful, most of all by myself. I viewed my family as putting me, a baby, in a room and telling me, "Learn how to walk--I'll be back in a while to see how successful you were." My mother always expected only the best from me. But, it's harder to continue to be successful as you get older because the challenges you face are more difficult. Though I did want to isolate myself because I was so terrified of failure, I also felt the need to be known for achievement. Almost in an Emily Dickinson-esque kind of way--I wanted to be able to hide and later be discovered as a creative genius. I had always been successful in school and my extra curricular activities growing up, and as I grew older I wanted to continue to push that envelope--I wanted to be the most amazing girl in the world at fourteen. But how does anyone even do that? I felt out of control, and what started out as a simple little diet turned into a realization: I could control lots of things with food. It was exciting to be able to change such a grand system as my body--the body is a very complicated thing, but even at fourteen years old I was able to alter it in any way I wanted. 

I took a stand against the anorexia nervosa by realizing that being 30-40 pounds underweight and terrified of food wasn't accomplishing anything at all. I wasn't amazing, I was dying. I couldn't do anything outside of my rigid routine of minuscule meals and exercising and self-deprivation. I wasn't writing at all, because I had no energy to write, and because I knew no one wanted to read a zillion poems about me not eating. It's not that I wanted the energy to experience things worth writing about, like climbing mountains or becoming a prima ballerina, it's that I wanted the energy to write about anything at all. I just wanted the energy to be able to write well.

 

What do you enjoy most about being an RA on campus? How long have you been on residence life staff?

I've been on Res Life for two years, both years I was an RA. Like I said before, I tend to isolate myself when I'm feeling stressed or overwhelmed, so being an RA has forced me to not jump to isolation at the sign of any danger. As an RA, I can't isolate myself by any means; it's my job to interact with my residents and build community through hall events. The Res Life staff at UST is so supportive, and they've helped mold me into the person I am today, someone who is not as terrified of failure or connecting with others. It's such a positive environment that praises you not only on your accomplishments but also on the kind of person you are when you wake up in the morning. My staff and residents don't expect me to be perfect, just determined and hopeful. 

 

What are your plans after graduation?

I'm attending University of Houston's MFA Creative Writing program in the fall--I will be concentrating in poetry. 

 

Looking back on your time at UST, how would you describe it?

I would describe it as a transforming experience. I arrived here very much in the midst of my eating disorder. I talked to very few people my freshman and sophomore years. When I became a part of Res Life, suddenly my world exploded and I was thrust into a very normal lifestyle with no room for my own rituals or tendencies. This was very good for me, and with all the energy and activity I was able to reevaluate my passions and pursue them with a vengeance; it seemed as if a lot happened in a very short period of time: suddenly I was changing my major to English, cranking out poetry, and applying to MFA grad programs. The entire time I received nothing but support from everyone around me at UST. 

 

You wrote for Laurels and won 2 poetry awards. What were those awards for?

The two awards were English departmental awards for Creative Writing--one is awarded each semester for poetry and for fiction. I won the poetry award two semesters for a small collection of my poetry.

What kinds of topics do you write about with poetry?

I am a confessional poet, and my poetry's principle themes are loss, mother-daughter relationships, religion, and today's standards of the woman's body and sexuality. I would describe the speakers of my poems, all of whom are manifestations of myself or people I know, as being haunted by their past, present, and future. I've been told many of my poems seem quite foreboding and menacing. I hope I can also inject some beauty into them, too!

Is that something you want to continue doing after graduation?

Yes. Poetry fascinates me, and I'm eager to see how far I can push my poetic. I think it will be interesting to see what direction[s] my poetry takes as I get older, I'm still coming to know who I am apart from the anorexia nervosa every day. Sometimes I feel I'm in a stage of my poetic where I'm still very angry and questioning of all that surrounded my disorder and my world as I was/am growing up. In the future I may continue to be predominately confessional, or that might change. But I have never felt as invigorated as I do when I read and write poetry, and I want to continue along that path. 

 

Are you Catholic?

No.

Symposium, Peter and Vandy, Hilarious Blog, and Cute Pictures

Tomorrow UST's Undergraduate Research Symposium begins...and I keep being told and retold how this is such an incredibly wonderful opportunity for someone my age. Apparently most people don't present at stuff like this until their Doctoral programs. I don't know how true this is--but it sounds pretty darn snazzy. On Saturday I'll be reading some poetry from my thesis "Hagridden"...everyone should go see it...10:30 am, Jerabeck 201. (Or maybe 202. I honestly don't remember. Just look for me if you go.)

Josh won a poetry competition at UH! Go Josh!

Now he finally has confidence in his poetry. :) He's been looking at it ever since he found out and marveling at its greatness. I think it's hilarious and adorable. 

So in the meantime as I wait for the symposium and for April 15th (when apparently STUFF will happen and my life will change)...instead of doing the homework I need to do, I have been taking complete advantage of Josh's and my new Netflix account and all the movies you can watch INSTANTLY online. Honestly, this seems illegal. I'm just watching SO many...at least once a day! It really should be illegal. 

But it's NOT illegal...tonight I watched this indie movie called "Peter and Vandy." It was heart-wrenching...I just can't get over it. The movie spans the life of a couple's relationship...how they meet, the growth, the break-up, and the reuniting. It's shot out of order, so at first you aren't sure what's going on, and you slowly have to piece everything together and put it all in order. The way that the movie leaves clues for the audience to connect the dots is brilliant, in my opinion. And you truly aren't 100% positive until the very end how it all turned out, so it's not like you figure out the trick half-way through and then just wait for it all to unfold. It was really effective. I encourage everyone to go see it--but don't if you are in a sad mood, because it will make you even sadder in some parts. But it is so worth it--so well-made. At times the couple is so awful to each other that you want to stop watching the movie...but then the way they act toward each other afterward is so amazingly real and believable that you can't stop watching. I got to the point where I felt I was in the relationship and I was questioning whether I really wanted this couple to be together or not; typically in films I have a pretty firm idea of what side I'm on. This one really muddles everything up. 

I know I'm probably behind on this, but I Stumbled across this girl's blog the other night in Astronomy...and it's just too hilarious not to share: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/ I guarantee it will fix any bad mood you find yourself in. It makes me want to start doodling again...how I miss passing notes of dancing bananas and Richard Simmons with my bff Jessie. 

And here's some random cute pictures I liked from weheartit.com!

April

First note: I caved. I caved and used shampoo--I know, I know. Awful. I couldn't help it. I like fluffy suds in my hair during the shower, they are kind of like therapy. I missed them, and felt sooo good after the first shampooing. Oh well, maybe I'll try again some other time. Right now I'll just deal with the reality of angry shampoo bubbles on my scalp.

This is a weird time...it won't be long till I know for sure where I'm going to grad school--most everything will happen the 15th. I feel an awkward standstill--as if I can't fully acknowledge anything I'm feeling right now until I know what the future is like. Everything seems very slow and very loud. 

This Saturday I'm presenting some of my poetry at the research symposium...looking forward to that since it will be my first "sort-of" individual reading. You should go if you can--10:30.

The plan is that by the time I graduate from grad school I should have something published somewhere. There's a poet out there already named Nicole Walker...I'm not getting married for a few years, so I'm thinking of tweaking my first name. Any suggestions? Not Nikki. 

This post is very disjunctive. I think some writing is in order, too bad I have astronomy right now. 

The state of my hair

Day three no-poo: my hair feels odd. Although smooth (no frizz), it also feels coarse. Do not like. Not sure where to go from here.

Actually, though--I have to admit. Before I washed my hair this morning, it felt pretty good, but I felt weird not washing my hair (cause I'm in the habit of washing it every day) so I washed it and it got weird. So maybe I need to break the habit of thinking I need to wash my hair every day. We'll see how it feels tomorrow. 

Cute pictures:

http://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/36/482503689

http://stripedzebra.tumblr.com/

 http://hello-tiger.blogspot.com/2010/03/gor-det-sjalv-ideer-fran-danmark-diy.html