Home Away From Home

Culinary Adventures

Chicken stir fry with bell peppers and mushrooms, served over fried rice.

I was feeling a little ambitious this weekend and wanted to test out my new baby rice cooker. This is the result.

Mysterious Moon

It was difficult for my camera to capture, but I saw the strangest thing the other night. All the clouds in the night sky seemed to be congregated around the waxing gibbous moon. The rest of the sky was inexplicably clear, except for a few fluffy tufts of water vapor that hung suspended in the stratosphere.

Quotes

"The pen is mightier than the sword, but which would you rather be hit with?" - Anonymous

"He who laughs last thinks slowest." - Anonymous

"We have flown the air like birds, we have swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers." - Dr. MLK Jr.

"I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it." - John Rzeznik

"Canada doesn't count. You can't put Canada in your taxes. 'What did you invest in this year, Mr. Loire?' 'Oh, I bought Canada.' And then--what?" - Javier Loire

It's a bit strange...

....But as I'm preparing for graduate school and pumping myself up for a career in the health and medicine, I can't help but feel I missed out on certain opportunities. Sure, there was the whole studying-abroad thing and seeing the world, but I really wish I could've taken a few classes in life drawing and animation. Maybe something in graphic design. I guess I'll have to be self-taught, then.

My priorities are seriously messed up, I know, hahaha. But when you chisel your way past the aspiring doctor who dances with the sciences, hidden in the core of my person is a heart made of art.

Ink & Gold Storyboards

Strider: 8.19.2002 - 05.20.2011

I was a little mortified when I looked through five years' worth of photographs and found out that this meager collection of pictures is the only hard evidence that Strider ever existed.

It was particularly difficult to come to terms with his loss. Between finals season and my roommates' graduation ceremonies, I hadn't been home in nearly a month, and he'd died the morning that I was supposed to return. I'd been looking forward to seeing him after three weeks of studying and exams--and instead I ended up going to the vet's office, viewing the body, and taking his collar home with me. That collar is currently buried deep inside one of my drawers, so that the bell won't ring when I have to open it.

I spent the first five days crying. It would blindside me: I'd see his claw marks on the screen door, or I'd see our staircase and remember how he used to play on them, and next thing I knew I'd be in tears. Sometimes it wouldn't take anything at all: just the realization that he wasn't going to be here anymore, that I could've been a better caretaker, and that all the events that surrounded his death were as murky and suspicious as the death itself.

But all I can do now is smile whenever I think about Strider's little quirks, and try my hardest to remember what it sounded like when he purred in contentment or meowed for no reason, or what it felt like when he cuddled against my shins and stood on his hind legs to nuzzle my palm. Celebrate his life. Remember the good times.

I'm not crying anymore. Progress.

Since that day, I've been trying to keep myself distracted, probably at the expense of . . . well, everyone else. I spent all my free time crafting things for a wedding, attending said wedding, or spending the day at cafes and bookstores, brooding over particularly foul cups of coffee. I'd go anywhere, as long as it meant I wouldn't have to stay in the house and wallow in that void you can't see, but can feel.

But there's always that little caveat: no matter how far you drive, eventually you'll have to come home, and the funny little friend who used to greet you at your car will no longer be able to walk you to the door.