I worked out twice today: once at the gym downstairs at work with the barbell and once making this lentil curry.  The amount of mixing and chopping I had to do to make this concoction was a little more than I anticipated (peeling 8 cloves of garlic took me forever).  I guess at the supermarket I decided to just double the recipe so now I have two gallons of this stuff left over to tide me over for the rest of the year.  Since it’s in the 90s inside with the a/c off to save money, maybe I can close my eyes and pretend I’m in India.  Hmm, now I’m kinda wondering how long I can go eating this stuff but they say everything is tasty when you’re hungry. My roommate is pretty good at cooking and he can just throw tasty things together on a whim.  I wish I could do that but for now I’m stuck following a recipe (when it says to grate 3 inches of garlic root, I have to get a ruler just to be sure… ).  And it called for orange sweet potatoes… isn’t that just yams?  There were some items like chard I had to look up to know what they were.  I guess I’m a food noob.

My model is leaving for the bay area!  Her last day at work is this Friday, but we were able to take a few more photos of this weeks theme, straw hats. Straw hats seem to be popular at the office to protect the face.  I remember when I was in middle school I used to lie on the carpet at home and expose my legs to the sunlight coming in through the windows hoping they would become more tan and attractive.  Not quite sure what I was thinking back then.  Anyway, I was able to get a few shots of my other fellow actuaries too, who seemed good sports about having their photo taken. With her leaving, it looks like I might have to find some other hobby — I don’t think I’ll find someone as enthusiastic about dressing up and posing.  It was a fun little thing to look forward to, and I learned what kitten heels are.

Phew!  Was at the office until 11 last night and I’ll have to go in a bit to work and hopefully get in some studying.  Here’s the last of my “lace” photos:

I’m really tempted to submit one of these awkward gems:

Awkward Fashion Photos! A million dollar idea! And I have so many of these…

Some data wasn’t ready yesterday so tonight might be a long night.  I went to bed a little late yesterday too, around 2.  Some people in my small group like to stay up late talking.  When I was younger my dad had people over for dinner and they would stay up long hours talking and I couldn’t imagine why they’d just sit there talking when they could be playing video games or something.  I mean they’re just sitting there!  How fun could that be?  My ten year old brain couldn’t quite wrap itself around the idea that talking and hanging out with adults could be remotely fun. Back then, taking photos of women’s clothing would probably fall in that same category…

I’ve been working on a hedgehog painting at home (with Cookie occasionally keeping me company).  I guess I’m always a few years behind the times because I just started using Spotify to listen to music while I work and listening to random cover songs (my favorite kind of music lately) like Boyce Avenue / Kira Grannis’ Fast Car and Vitamin String Quartet’s Breakeven.  It saves me the trouble of having to scour youtube to find music but I get the impression it really wants you to post on Facebook what you’re listening to and send your friends links to songs, which I inadvertently did.  I mean, who posts links to songs (like to Sam Tsui’s How to Love)?!? This week’s street style subject is lace.  Vashti is finding this inspiring and promises other outfits later this week.

I’m starting to get a lot faster at taking these Street Style photographs.  Or maybe I’m just becoming more indifferent about my camera settings.  I can’t really tell.

I just woke up to an erie dream where I had just finished my five year stint as an undercover agent posing as a steward on an airplane (we just caught the bad guy) and as I was saying goodbye to a particular stewardess she wrapped her arms around my leg and I said “there, there, one day you’ll be saying goodbye too” after which severe nostalgia over all our non-existent times together dropped to my stomach and I woke with the lights on.  I thought it was quite the bizarre feeling since I’ll probably never see this mystery stewardess in a dream again. What’s weird is that afterwards I started thinking people I’ll probably never see again, and even people I do see on a regular basis, and I started to miss certain old memories of them.  But I guess you don’t miss them right away.  Like today, my friend Vincent and I watched the documentary Wordplay together in the living room before church (and even managed to figure out most of the crafty long answers to the Sunday puzzle; spolier) and I definitely don’t miss that time now but give it a few years and who knows.

Kinda tough getting the collar to be more conspicuous.  I’m glad that Vashti is enthusiastic about doing this.  I don’t think I could ever wear a bow tie (but if the theme of the week is ever Uninteresting Polo, I’ll be all over that).

My photo made the New York Times! I kinda liked my other submissions more, though:   I have exactly 0 spring scarves so I’m glad my coworker, Vashti, was into this.  I think I took way more photos than necessary.  My current method of photography is spray and pray.

I’ve been making some progress on these modules (currently on three out of eight) but I decided to take a bit of a break at work today and watch a movie off of my Amazon prime subscription: Page One, Inside the New York Times.  It made me wish I was better writer so I thought maybe I should write a breaking story of how my roommate went to Vegas last weekend and left me in charge of taking care of Cookie, which didn’t amount to much besides feeding and walking her and petting her and feeding her doggie treats and letting her wander around outside while I braved the California weather for this photo op.  I can smell that Pulitzer already.

Last Saturday was my first attempt at making lasagna. I followed this recipe, recommended to me by both my coworker and punchfork (which I’ve become a fan of).  Another weekend ago I made braised fruited lamb shank which was probably more photogenic but alas, no photo (I had a friend over and I didn’t want to make him wait setting up the camera and tripod and arranging the scene; I just can’t seem to take a quick snapshot with my fantsy-pants camera).  Anyway, with the amount of cheese and meat I put in this bad boy, I would hate to see its nutritional info. It was also the first time I used a dutch oven for the meat sauce.  It was my roommates and I’m thinking his cost a pretty penny. I’ve never handled a piece of cooking wear so delicately.  I must have soaped and washed that thing five times after it was clean before putting it back in its box. On a totally random note, here’s a photo of my roommate’s girlfriend’s dog named Cookie (wearing a pooh suit for the winter months).  If you ever want to be a chef who makes food that gets longing mouthwatering glares, this is the dog to get.