Author Archives: D.R. Slaten

Sabbaticals, Holidays and Days Away

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We’ve lost something. Our modern selves. We lost time for ourselves. For being. For breathing. Recharging. Rejuvenating and just plain refreshing ourselves.

The Europeans have something in their yearly holiday. A month long. It’s a length of time almost unheard of and certainly not contemplate-able to most Americans. It’s also the absolute minimum amount of time I think one needs to reset one’s mind and reintegrate back to our real selves. I want to say true self, but each of our selves are true. Only one is real at it’s core. And that’s the one who emerges when completely stress free and, paradoxically, the one who emerges when under tremendous street.

Don’t get me wrong, our short, frantic time away helps our brains, but not enough. Once a year, for mental health reasons and purposes, we need to unplug from the everyday and take the time feed our need for periodic periods of rest. It’s why we can’t survive without sleep in a much shorter time than we can live without food. Our brains must recharge. And we will die if we don’t get at least some form of rest everyday. In a much larger scale, this need is correlative on a yearly basis. And no we won’t die if we don’t get a month long vakay every year. But doesn’t a portion of us wither? Atrophy? Emaciate?

And most of us know this. We look with longing at those of our compatriots across the pond. While we shake our head not understanding how one can just get away for a whole month, we secretly wish it were us taking the leisure train straight to a hot beach. And now for the truly revolutionary… every decade or so, we should take half a year… at least.

I know, right?

Holy shit.  A half a year? Away from our everyday life? From the mundane? The routine?

Never. Impossible. Financially not feasible.

So not true. IF you plan a decade out, it can happen. If this became something we all did, it could be planned for in advance. Using that time to further our personal or professional goals would be fabulous. Finding something new to spark your passion and your mind would be even better. Stretching and reaching to become the person you were always meant to be. Paint, learn an instrument, travel, learn a new language, go back an get a degree or finish a degree, volunteer at home or abroad. The possibilities are endless.

All of this means you are a better person in your everyday life. Insights gleaned during these periods of discovery and rejuvenation can be incorporated into one’s life with really positive impact. Everybody you touch will be richer for it. Most especially yourself.

Things Readers SHOULD Ask Authors

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Look if you’re a reader, ask me anything. I don’t care. I want your questions. I want your insights. I want your responses. And I’ll respond back. If I don’t, it’s because I didn’t see it. Bring it to my attention. I love interaction. LOVE. It. Authors who don’t like to interact with readers are like dinosaurs. They’re gonna get extinct. Usually, by human action.

So, totally tongue-in-cheek. Because apparently, there are bitch writers out there. I’m a bitch. But not a bitch writer. Totally different, yo. So, totally tongue-in-cheek, here are 5 questions you SHOULD ask your (un)favorite author. 😉

1. Do you write naked? ‘Cause you laid some shit out in the book that maybe would’ve been better off covered. Author, cover they self so you can cover yourself in your work.

2. Did you steal that one great story idea, because all your other story ideas kinda suck?

3. You’ve never has sex have you? Because have you TRIED what you’ve written about? Only a total noob to fucking would write a sex scene like that.

4. You paid someone to publish your book, didn’t you?

5. Did your mom buy all those books that Amazon lists as sold?

Now, I know I’m going to get some shit for this. But seriously? Being polite costs nothing. Being a dick? Everything. Don’t be a dick!

Homemade Ice Cream

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I know I’m jumping the gun. I know that Spring isn’t even here yet. I know all of this. Still, I am craving ice cream. Cold and creamy served under delicious hot fudge, whip cream and nuts. Warm weather can’t get here soon enough. Until then, I’m cranking up the heat and eating ice cream pretending that it’s Summer already.

I use a recipe that is a cross between Alton Brown’s recipe and a Chowhound recipe. It’s a basic vanilla custard. It is fabulous on its own, or you can be adventurous and add other goodies as it mixes.

Homemade Ice Cream

6 egg yolks
2 cups half and half
1 cup cream
2/3 cup vanilla sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 vanilla bean

1. Prepare a water bath in a large bowl. Set aside.

2. In a saucepan, heat half & half with the cream and the vanilla bean pod denuded of its interior until it simmers. Take off heat and set aside.

3. Mix egg yolks until lighter in another bowl. Add in vanilla sugar and the scraped out insides of the vanilla bean. Mix well. Temper the eggs with some of the cream mixture until the eggs are brought up to the same temperature as the cream mixture. Pour it all into the saucepan. Heat over medium-lowish heat for about 2-3 minutes or until it coats the back of a spoon or it reaches 170 degrees.

4. Pour the mixture back through a fine mesh strainer into the egg/sugar bowl and put it all into the water bath. Bring the custard down to room temperature. About 30-45 minutes. Put it into the fridge uncovered until it no longer forms condensation. Then cover and let sit in fridge for 4-6 hours or overnight.

5. Put into ice cream maker and follows the instructions for the machine.

Enjoy!

Life Isn’t Sacred

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And it shouldn’t be. And most of you don’t believe it really is. You might give lip service to the notion, but deep in your heart of hearts you don’t really believe in the sacredness of human life. Not really.

If human life were sacred, and that belief held by the majority, there would be no war, no abortions, no death penalty, no free choice when it comes to life lengthening medical procedures, no ability to choose to die with dignity. None of that and so much more would not exist, much less be debated. But life isn’t held as sacred by most.

And as you can see, the logical conclusion of making such a belief a real life practice is ludicrous, and kinda sad. We would all be forced to chose life even when death is preferable, and not at all against our own personal system of beliefs. And in a democratic society allowing one groups morals and beliefs about life govern every member of that society leads to gross injustice and a caricature of what morals and ethics truly should be.

Think about this, if your group can impose their ideas and beliefs on everyone else, what’s going to stop another group, which may be anathema to you and your group, from doing the exact same thing. It could happen. It has happened. So stop fucking up the country. We need rules and laws that include as many people beliefs and ideals.

Look, I get you might have strongly held beliefs about the sanctity of life. I get that. So do I. And I don’t think that your idea of what my life should look like should be any more relevant than my idea of what your life should like. That is all. And by forcing these issues legally with huge press, you are irrevocably damaging our individual abilities to remain semi-autonomous in our democracy. Think about this, if you and your religious kooky, zany friends can impose your Christian virtues on the rest of us, what’s to stop the followers of Shiva from doing the same? Or the Satanic folks? Or <insert your most hated religion/ideology here>?

You and your friends are truly fucking up America for the rest of us. Leave us alone and in peace. If you don’t agree with gay marriage, don’t get gay married. If you don’t agree with abortion, don’t get an abortion. If you don’t agree with gender equality, then live YOUR life in inequity. Et. Cetera and et. cetera Get it? Don’t stop other people from doing some shit. Just stop YOURSELF. Otherwise, I get to tell you how to live. And I’m betting you won’t like it.

The first thing I’d do is get rid of home-schooling. Jaysus, just the thought of a discrete segment our population growing up unsocialized, unable to think critically and evaluate competent theories, and just plain uneducated (don’t scream- truly conscientious parent are rare) is fucking scary. I’d get rid of YOUR ability to chose this option. Period. It hurts our country to have stupid citizens. But see how we don’t do that? Even if we think it’s fucking stupid? There are so many things I’d impose on YOUR life. So. Many.

So today, as we think about Roe v. Wade, remember children city hall has to include satanic displays as well as the Nativity now because you freaks decided to push this issue and make it a legal mandate. So thanks a fucking lot. Stop doing that. Don’t do not one other thing in the name of your religion and beliefs. You are fucking shit up for the rest of us. And we are tired of it. Tired, I tell you. You don’t understand the long-term implications of what you are doing. Obviously. Otherwise, you would’ve seen the satanic displays coming.

So stop fucking shit up, Jesus freaks. Cause you might not like the next freaks to come after you. After you paved the way for the rest of the goddamn freaks to impose their beliefs on the rest of us. I know logical thinking hurts. Let the rest of us rational, reasonable people do the thinking for you, especially if you’ve been home-schooled–please, please, please–let the rest of us do the thinking.

Wizards of Winter: Part Deux

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I know, I know, I did this song last year. And I don’t like repeating songs. At all. But, this rendition is awesome. Last year, it was just one house that did the synchronized light display. This year, a WHOLE frickin’ block synchronized their lights to Wizards in Winter.

Yes, I know the song title is incorrect. Unfortunately, the uploader of the video titled the YouTube this way. The music is Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The coolest neighborhood in America is located in Yucaipa, California.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yvBtccWnp4

 

Foggy Bottom Split Pea Soup

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As Fall turns into Winter, all official like, on the solstice, many people around the world celebrate this turn of the season. I always think of it as one last hurrah before we hunker down for the colder months to come. One last feast of plenty in preparation of leaner times. Well, at least that’s how I think it used to be.

In the US, our Holiday Season begins with Thanksgiving and extends straight through to New Year’s Day. In a country of plenty, we’ve taken plenty to the nth degree straight into a month and a half of plenty. I want to muster some form of disgust at this blatant display of wealth and abundance but I can’t. I really can’t. Because the food is frickin’ delicious. Some part of me is just not able to flame the small amount of guilt at loving the food so much into a conflagration. I’m too distracted by the yummy. I like celebrating with food and friends and family and fellowship with all of the above. I like the convivial communal table that comes with such yummy goodness.

To assuage some of the feelings that not feeling bad makes me feel, I pay homage to principles of conservation. What the hell do I mean, you ask. Well, it really is all about the ham bone. Left-overs, yo. What the hell to do with the ham bone. Cause I know you saved it instead of being wasteful. If you thought ahead, you left lots of meat on the bone. Were going to use it to make split pea soup. So break out the Beano, or just go find a room in which to be alone.

Repurpose the Bone! 😉

Foggy Bottom Split Pea Soup

 

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 medium carrots, half-mooned
3 stalks celery, diced
1 Tbsp Herbes de Provence
Ham Bone- leave the meat on as it cooks
8 cups chicken/turkey stock (I make stock from the bones of the Thanksgiving turkey)
1 small bag green or yellow split peas
parsley
salt
pepper
optional: 3 medium diced red or yellow potatoes

Directions:

1. Over medium heat, cook onions until translucent. Add garlic, cook for a minute. *I like garlic in my split pea soup. Some people don’t. Omit if you want.* Add carrots and celery. *If you’re adding potatoes, do it here as well.* Cook for 3-5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the Herbes de Provence. Cook for 2 minutes more.

2. Place Ham bone in the center of the pot. Sprinkle the peas around the bone. Cover with broth- use more or less depending on how big your pot is. Also, any stock not used can be added in later. Bring to a boil. Reduce to simmer and cover. Cook for 40-45 minutes, or until peas are tender.

3. Remove ham bone and set aside to cool slightly. Mash some of the peas with a big spoon, or blend half of it, or use a hand mixer and pulse a few times. Leave enough peas and veggies intact to not have the whole thing mushed. When bone is cool, remove meat. Either tear or chop ham and put back into the pot. Correct seasoning and liquid level. Serve with fresh parsley on top.

Racism, Prejudice and Privilege

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… in America.

Current events make people uncomfortable. Most want “this” to go away. From the segment of the population being oppressed, this view is not understandable. You can only want oppression and racism to go away if you aren’t confronted with it on a daily basis. Enter… privilege. Out of sight, out of mind never had so clear an example.

There is the belief that if we don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.

But that’s a lie. As in a falsehood. We don’t see racism in America anymore because its gone underground. <— That statement is inflammatory to most. And these are good people. Decent people. Who are fucking horrified that allegations that racism in America still exists. Because in their world it doesn’t. But they’re confusing racism with prejudice. I will say this. America has really worked on not being prejudicial. But not being prejudicial doesn’t stamp out racism. It just means that most Americans aren’t assholes who think a persons color predestines them to a life of <insert your derogatory act here>.  What it doesn’t mean is that racism is gone.

The racism of today is the structures leftover from those before of of their hate. Like Pompeii, we are dealing with the buildings built by haters. Our mistake was thinking we could use these empty buildings for better, more moral purpose. Or just a useful purpose. What we forgot was these building were built to keep certain segments of a population down. They are inherently oppressive. Regardless of a different, newer purpose, the functions of many of these ghost buildings still oppress.

In other words, we’ve replaced legal slavery with felonies. We use the law to oppress. In the first instance, it was with the full support of the law. Now, we create second class citizens with crimes. Lots and lots of crimes. And we’ve replaced lynchings with shootings. We’re using the law to do the same thing to the same group of people. We create laws KNOWING they will have disparate effects on discrete groups. And we like that. And it’s racist.

That’s the difference between racism and prejudice. Prejudice is usually one-on-one/group of people. Racism is using the “buildings” of society, i.e., governmental offices, to oppress certain singular peoples. We’ve come a long way with prejudice. And almost nowhere with racism.

You can tell yourself racism doesn’t exist because your aren’t prejudice, but that doesn’t make it true. It just means you aren’t an asshole in your day to day dealings with people of color. But that speaks not at all on the subject of why black people are still being incarcerated at crazy rates, or killed even when unarmed by police officers. Or why black people are given incredible disparate sentences, or even why little black children are expelled from kindergarten at rates that far exceed their demographic representation or that of any other group of persons.

Racism is there. You just have to look for it. Gone are the days of “well, I’m an asshole racist bastard” so I know racism exists, to “hey, just because I’m not a racist asshole bastard doesn’t mean there’s not some shit going on that just can’t be explained away in any other way than this shit’s racist.”

Admitting that there is racism doesn’t mean you are admitting that you’re racist. Or prejudiced. It just means you are privileged enough to look for it or not look. Racism is like that tree in the woods. Just because you’re not hearing the damage it does as it falls and tramples through the woods doesn’t mean its not doing damage. Racism is real, it’s alive and it’s hurting fellow Americans.

I know most people want racism to be done and over. Slavery is a blight on our collective history. Of course, we want that shit done and gone.

So do the people who are STILL experiencing racism everyday. They really want that shit done and gone.

Manday Monday: Kilts

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I’d give you a hottie in a kilt. Yummo.

Happy Monday! Enjoy. 🙂

Don’t know who he is, but he’s smokin’.

Age, Aging and Being a Woman

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I’m getting older. It’s been happening for a while now. Aging occurs whether I pay attention to it or to something else. It is relentless and not at all stoppable. And for most of it, I didn’t care.

But somewhere along the line, I crossed the magical line between looking good, and looking good for my age. It’s an invisible line, but it exist in every woman’s world. Not to say that men don’t sure in this world, but for some reason, they aren’t subjected to the scrutiny that comes as they get older. It might seem unfair. It’s not. Because they are judged on other things just as harshly as women are judged on looks. Part of me thinks this has to do with the biological reasons we pick mates. What we need to find in a potential life partner and co-parent is apparently different for boys and girls. I dunno what the underlying reasons are for real; I can only speculate. But it makes sense to me. So I’m going with it until I learn differently. So school me up if you’ve got the info I need.

It’s hard getting older as a woman in America. Aging gracefully seems to be an oxymoron in our society. In our world, age and grace don’t belong together when they are paired together in reference to women. So imagine trying to live that shit. Getting older isn’t a dirty word. But in so many ways, small and large, I and many other women are made to feel that way. I’m not unattractive, mostly passably pretty. But the quality of how I look seems to have been overtaken by how old I look. We are told we look too young, or too old. We dress too young, or too old. Our hair is too young, or in a style that is too old. The list goes on and on.

When the FUCK do women get to be just right?

Goldilocks and her three bears have passed us by completely. Women are told over and over again that they are not quite right. Ever. At any age.

I am right. As in okay. As in perfectly fine, great even. Right at the age I’m at. And I don’t dress too young, or too old. I dress how the fuck I feel. On any given Sunday and every day there after. I wear my hair how I feel. And by that, I mean I have STOPPED coloring the gray out. I am just right. Exactly the age I am and exactly the way I am.

I have to confess that I was torn about not coloring the gray out of my hair. The examples of women who let their hair gray naturally are small, few and not glorified. When did we stop thinking that salt and pepper hair was hot as hell? On women as well as men? The confidence it exudes for a person in our society to allow age to show is way sexy. Way.

Besides, it’s all a trap. Didn’t you get it from reading the stuff above? When we are young, we are told to wear makeup and dress up to look older. When we are old, we are told to do anything to look young–but not unnaturally so. When we fall into the trap of doing either of these things, then we are told that we are acting “too old,” “dressing too young,” “trying too hard,” and the list of how we don’t measure up in what we are or trying to portray goes on and on.

We as women can never get it right.

And we are hamsters running on the wheel trying to get to that just right state.

Only the game is rigged. And that’s never gonna happen. Ever. Because just when we get that perfect mix, it tips and we are “too” something else. And I’m done with that. Me and all my goddamn gray hairs.

#NaNoWriMo2014

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I hate hashtags, formerly known as the pound sign, in the title of a post. I get that it’s all about the marketing, but I still don’t like it. It bothers my eyes, the aesthetics bother me on some deeper level. So I was hesitant to put it into my title. I mean, hypocritical much? I decided to do it, anyway. Because NaNoWriMo deserves its own hashtag. And more importantly, I think it merits having it in the title of this post. It’s a judgment call. My judgment, that is. Which is all that matters on this blog. Umm, cause it’s mine.

By: David

This is the first year I’ve officially signed up for NaNo. Past years, I just wrote along with everyone else keeping score alone. I decided to do something different this year. Because I needed it. And signing up all official like, and posting this on my blog all announcement like, screams commitment. And will make me finish what I’ve started. Because I’ve been trying for a while now. And it hasn’t been working out so well. Or at all. There’s something about telling your commitment in a public forum that seems to make one finish those undesirable tasks.

NaNo is a worthwhile endeavor, all on its own. But as a tool to help one press further, faster, or just past a hurdle, is invaluable. A godsend, if you want to get technical. Brought to me on the wings of dozens of dead writers who are now angels of inspiration to all those of us left to toil with words on the earth. THAT’S how technical I mean, bitches. God and angels and shit.

If you’re at all on the fence about NaNo, go sign up. Be a joiner and then add me as your friend because I have none at the moment. Help me out, y’all. In the process, you might find that you’ve helped yourself out even more. By making you finish that damn book. If I yell loud enough about November being National Write your Damn Book Month, would that help as well? I dunno, but it sure does make the jiggles feel better after I scream a little. Ha. If you’re like me and STARTING something isn’t the problem, but finishing is… do NaNo. If not, just tune in periodically as I do NaNo. You can have a front seat to me pulling out my hair. And hopefully, but the end of the month, you’ll also see a finished product.