How I make Salsa (sometimes)

I need to preface this post by saying this is NOT a recipe. I'm not really great at following recipes, or remembering recipes, which isn't to say that I'm a bad cook (or maybe it is), but saying that I'm not the most consistent cook is fair. According to my sister, I cook like I drive. I have a general sense of where I want to go, and I figure that if I just keep moving, I'll get there eventually.

That being said, I had a request for my salsa recipe, and I would love to share it with whomever would like it, but like I said, I don't use recipes. Instead, I will share it with you in narrative form.

Last week, Alex and I had some friends over to watch the IU game, and I wanted to make some snacks. I was already planning to make artichoke dip, and I thought that salsa would be a great complement. Whenever I decide to make salsa, the process is dependent on what I have in the house. This time I happened to have a number of ingredients including: 6-7 roma tomatoes, 1 serano pepper, 2 poblano peppers, 1 dried ancho pepper, and 3 dried arbol peppers, garlic, green onions, cilantro, lime juice, salt, agave nectar.

This is what the dried chiles look like:

Basically I just dumped all of the ingredients in the blender, but I'll be a bit more specific.

First, I rinsed the tomatoes, cut the tops off, and put them in the blender (I started with four or five, but I ended up adding a couple more because it came out too spicy... more on this later). Then I cleaned the two poblanos and the serano by removing the stem and the seeds. From past experience I know that you must wash your hands thoroughly after doing this because the heat will transfer from your hands to anything you touch. For instance, if you touch your eyes they will burn like crazy, and if you go to the bathroom without washing your hands with soap first... well.. just don't do that. Okay?

Next, I ground up 1 ancho chile and 3 arbol chiles (remove the stems but keep the seeds) with a mortar and pestle, which looks like this:

If you don't have one, it doesn't matter that much, because this is all going in the blender or food processor anyway. I added 1 large clove of garlic (pressed), a handful of chopped green onions (probably 3 or 4 stems), and a small bunch of cilantro. I usually pull the leaves off the stems. I don't know if it makes any difference if you leave some of the stem on (it would certainly be faster), but this is just how I've always done it. I then added a few squirts of lime juice. I prefer Nellie & Joes Key West Lime Juice, but any lime juice will work. At this point I blended it and tasted it, and it was a bit too spicy. It also didn't taste very good because it needed salt. So, I added two more tomatoes, some salt (about 1 tsp), and a spoonful of agave nectar (sugar would be fine too). I blended and tasted again and added some more lime juice, and more salt. Basically, I just kept tasting and tweaking until I liked it.

I actually thought that this batch tasted too much like chile. I would have liked it to have more tomato flavor. Next time, I will probably use three jalapeños instead of all of the various peppers I used. However, if you prefer a more intense flavor, dried chiles are the way to go.

I've always wanted to make a quilt...

And today I did :)

I'm calling it the Future Feminista Baby Blanket.

Inviting Your Demons to Tea

Lately I've been feeling more anxious than usual. I've been frustrated with myself and others and perhaps a bit unrealistic about my expectations. I want everything done, and perfect, and now.

Of course, everything can't be done perfectly and instantaneously. And wishing for this only ends up ruining the now.

Part of the problem is that I tend to think of positive and negative emotions as mutually exclusive opposites. I assume that I am either 100% confident/happy/secure, or I am 100% afraid/unhappy/insecure. So, whenever one of those negative emotions sneaks in, I do my best to shove it out the door as quickly as possible and get back to my happy place.

And, it works.

For a little while.

But, then those negative emotions that I've been saving up, all come back at once, and that's no fun.

This has gotten worse since I stopped meditating.

Every Saturday night (when we are actually in Austin and not off on our travels), I tell Alex that I will need the car so that I can go to meditation in the morning. Every Saturday night I set my alarm for 9:30. But, for the past however-many months when that alarm goes off I can't quite talk myself into going. Until today that is.

Today, I couldn't wait to go. I needed it. And, as usual, the focus for the day seemed written just for me. It was mostly about how faith and doubt co-exist in the mind, and how even the Buddha encountered doubt, he just dealt with it differently then most of us do.

The part that struck me most is something that I've heard many times before, but never really understood until today. There is a story about how the Buddha reacted when he was visited by Mara, a demon or "tempter, distracting humans from practicing the spiritual life by making the mundane alluring or the negative seem positive". Instead of resisting Mara, the Buddha simply said, "Oh Mara, I see you" and invited him in for tea.

What this means for me is that trying to remove negative thoughts is not the answer. Instead, I need to recognize those thoughts and sit with them. I also need to remember that having negative thoughts doesn't mean "I am negative" because both positive and negative can coexist at the same time. I can have faith in myself, my work, my relationships, and if doubt comes to visit every once in awhile, that's just fine.

There's plenty of tea for everyone.

How Molly Ringwald, Sassy Magazine, and My Mom Made My Wedding Dress

There are two types of people in this world: people who watch Pretty in Pink and "get" Andie's prom dress, and those who don't. I am firmly situated in the former category, and I'll tell y0u why...

For one thing, as a teenager, I definitely shared Andie's "grannie-chic" style. I loved pastel cardigans, all things crocheted, and a good vest. But, I rarely wore any of these without adding a little bit of flair. I'd shorten a hemline, add a lace-trim, or embroider a floral design. In other words, I was upcycling before upcycling was a thing. My

inspirations were twofold.

First, there was my mother, who may have been living a bit vicariously through me at the time. She used to make her own clothes in the late sixties/early seventies, and the fact that I tended toward a similar aesthetic probably made her more inclined to help me with my alterations. She also introduced me to thrift store and consignment shopping.

One time as we were looking through the racks of a small second-hand shop in Claremont, she came across a designer dress for $25.00. As we were paying for it, I was already thinking about how I would make it my own, saying something like, "I could cut the sleeves off and add..." But, before I could even finish the thought, the sales girl cut me off and said, "You most certainly will not! This is a Betsey Johnson!" So... I didn't alter that one, I did, however, pair it with burgundy Doc Martens.

Somewhere around the same time that I began to take an interest in fashion, I was introduced to Sassy magazine:

Unless you are just about exactly the same age as I am, you are either too young or too old to know what Sassy magazine was. It had a short lifespan, but let me tell you, it was pretty much perfect as far as teen-girl-magazines go. In addition to having really cool articles about really cool bands, each issue included an article on some feminist issue but from a personal perspective. It celebrated real girls. And, they had a DIY fashion section. What more could you ask for?

So, fast-forward 15+ years to when it came time for me to buy a wedding dress. I never experienced that frustrating search for The Dress. I knew that whatever dress I bought would need to be tweaked and added to, and I knew that my mom would help create a dress that was 100% me. And she did.

When I walked down the aisle, holding Alex's hand, I had my family with me. My mom had sewn buttons from my grandmother's wedding dress to the straps of my dress. The petticoat was a motley collection of meaningful materials, including the sleeve of mom's wedding dress and a piece of the shirt my father wore as he walked my sister down the aisle to my petticoat. My bouquet was wrapped in handkerchief that had belonged to my grandfather. All in all, it could not have been more perfect.

Sure, I could have had 22 dress fittings and chosen the style that made me appear to be thinner and richer and more David Tutera. But, instead of being wrapped in Faviana, I felt like I was wrapped in love.

If you think back to the movie, this is what Andie did too.

She took bits and pieces associated with people that mattered to her--her mother, her father, and Iona--and made something beautiful. She too, of course, could have made a dress that was more fitted and more trendy, but 1986's best dresses haven't exactly stood the test of time.

I think Andie's has.

Obviously, not everyone will agree, and I'm okay with that. Like I said... two types of people. I think people who understand Andie, and people who understand Sassy, understand my dress, but more importantly, they understand me.

Because, sometimes a dress is more than a dress. A dress, or a magazine, or a wedding can "link people together irrevocably." According to the book, How Sassy Changed My Life:

Sassy has become a kind of code. "I meet people now and occasionally ask them if they were Sassy readers," says fan Catherine Bowers. Upon meeting a fellow Sassy fan, we feel like we understand something essential about that person: their life philosophy, what their politics might be like, what their artistic preferences are, what they were like in high school, what kind of person they wanted to grow up to be. (By contrast, we find non-fans of a certain age slightly suspect.) We seem to recognize kindred spirits even now.

Likewise, I recognize in Andie a kindred spirit, and if you don't get her dress, I bet you never read Sassy. But that's okay. It wasn't meant for you anyway.

A Mother's Journals

"You cannot not communicate." --Communication 101

"The medium is the message." --Marshal McCluhan

Students of communication will come across these phrases again and again, even in the most basic of Comm courses. Perhaps then, I should not be so intrigued and baffled by the story of Terry Tempest Williams' mother leaving her blank journals. But I am.

I am a person who thinks about death a lot. I can't say that I think about it more or less than the average person, because I don't know how much that is. I just know that I do think about it. I think about my own death, and the death of those whom I love. It's not in a morbid, or paranoid, or unhealthy way, more of a realistic acceptance of nature combined with a deep desire to live a life with no regrets.

But, because of this, coupled with my recent experiences of loss, I understand the desire to plan ways to communicate with loved ones after we are gone. Still, I don't quite understand Williams' mothers' journals. Then again, why should I? Her own daughter is left asking "Why?" Yet, she seems to be okay with the ambiguity. I think that part of mourning is learning to be okay with ambiguity.

Still, I have my theories...

In hearing Williams' story, the first thing that comes to mind is that perhaps her mother could not find her own voice as a writer and felt her daughter could better tell the story of her life. This interpretation seems very plausible, but not particularly satisfying. If that were the case, wouldn't one journal be enough to send such a message? Why keep buying journals?

So, I think about what would have happened if the journals had been written. Would she have still left them to her daughter? Had she done so, she would have had to imagine her daughter poring over them. Would that have brought her daughter comfort? Possibly. But, what if the daughter became too attached to these words, her only access to her mother's voice? If she became too obsessed with holding onto her mother's voice would she lose her own? Would she ever move on?

In the full interview on on Being, just before Williams talks about the journals, she mentions a quotation from Mardy Murie: "Don't worry about what you will do next if you take one step with all the knowledge you have. With all the knowledge you have there is usually just enough light shining to show you the next step." Williams is a writer. She writes. Her mother knew that. I'd like to think that the journals represent a mother trying to shine just enough light for her daughter to see that next step.

Catching My Breath

Although we never anticipate a change in cabin pressure, should one occur, four oxygen masks will fall from the compartment above. Place the mask over your nose and mouth and breathe normally. If you are traveling with small children please secure your mask first and then you can assist others. Finally sit back, relax, and enjoy your flight!



One of my earliest memories is of standing in our hallway in a face-off with my mother. I was maybe three years old and screaming at the top of my lungs. If I had to guess, I would say that it was probably time for bed, and I'd probably had too much sugar, and I was about to throw myself on the floor in what was about to be a full-blown temper tantrum. Apparently I did this a lot when I'd had too much sugar. The inevitable result would be me hyperventalating, which I also did a lot. Basically, I would freak out until I literally could not breathe.

My mom was never any good at helping me to breathe again. It was always my dad who would sit beside my bed and rub my back, coaxing me to take deep breaths, saying "you will be okay," until I would pass out from exhaustion. For some reason, my mom just couldn't do it. I think she was so busy checking on everyone else and doing that selfless thing that Catholic women seem especially prone to do, that in a moment of complete crisis she just didn't know how to teach someone else to breathe again.


The problem with Catholicism (as it was taught to me) is that the importance of making sure that you, yourself, are okay before you can help anyone else is never stressed. But, then the problem with making sure that you are okay before you help others is that we all have very different definitions of what it means to be "okay". Still, I think that we can all agree that breathing is pretty essential.

But my mom, she forgets to breathe.

Luckily, she has this amazing knack for being able to accomplish a lot with very little need for air.

Over the years she has dealt with so many things and with so much grace. She watched her best friend and older brother die from cancer. She watched her own mother slip slowly away, little by little, losing her mind to Alzheimer's. She held my father's hand through the deaths of both his parents and then watched him destroy himself with alcohol.

This year, she said goodbye to both her father and mine. I think that saying goodbye to my grandfather, though very very hard, was still easier than my father. My grandpa lived life to the fullest. He was a kind, funny, generous, hard-working man up to the very end. My mom took him to Hawaii just two weeks before his stroke where they went white-water rafting. I can't imagine him living a better life than he did.

My grandfather died, on March 26th of this year, and by that time, my dad had become a hermit. He was subsisting on the occasional pizza delivery and vodka. As much as we had all been avoiding visiting "the terrible place" (the name we had given to my parents' home) we had to go to the house to explain to him what had happened. At a time where my mother needed comforting most, my dad was barely able to speak. He was the one breaking down, and I was the one rubbing his back and telling him everything would "be okay."

About four months later Dad's body finally began to shut down. Somehow, even after the years of hell he'd put her through, my mother still found the strength care for him as he died. But she still hasn't had her chance to breathe. None of us has. Mom now has four properties to manage and several families looking to her to be our rock now. But who will support her?


I want to. I want to, but I don't know how, and I don't know if I'm okay. In the past few weeks I had been finding it increasingly difficult to breathe. The only thing that kept me from breaking down completely (depending on how you define "completely") was knowing that if I could just make it a few more days, I would be in Indiana, I would be with Alex, and I could breathe easily again. Which is, of course, exactly what happened.


So, when it came time to get back on a plane and head to California, I was going to do it, but I wasn't sure it was the best idea. I felt like I would be taking my mask off and giving it to my mom. Of course, if there were only one mask left, that's what I would do... but she wouldn't take it. She'd be trying to give it back to me... and then we'd both be screwed.


Thank God I have a sister. Thank God she lives in California, and thank God she's got a beautiful support system of her own. I still feel selfish taking care of me first, but I think the best thing I can do for my family right now is to make sure that I'm okay. To continue to work on building up this new support system Alex and I have begun to create for each other. To breathe.


please secure your mask first, and then you can assist others...

We hate it when our friends become successful

And if we can destroy them/ You bet your life we will/ Destroy them/ If we can hurt them/ Well, we may as well.../ It's really laughable/ Ha, ha, ha ...

A seemingly simple question has been bothering me lately: Why is it so easy for us, as human beings, to be there for someone when they are down, but not as easy to be supportive when people are happy? I’m not the first to suggest that people have a hard time being truly happy for our friends (but somehow a much easier time comforting them). As Toxic Narcotic puts it “We’re Not Happy ‘til You’re Not Happy,” as Morrissey proclaims, “We hate it when our friends become successful,” and as my friend Holly Holladay admits, oftentimes she’s "95% happy, 5% hate you a little."

Now, I’m not so cynical to believe that there aren’t people out there who find it easy to be happy for others. But, I am suggesting that most of us like to think we are equally supportive of our friends both in the good times and bad—but we’re not. And, don’t worry, if you think I’m about to get preachy here … I probably am… but I’m equally implicated in this.

Here, I’ll give you an example:

The last few years have been filled with weddings. I love my friends and I love a party, so weddings should be great, right? Wrong. To varying degrees, I find (or at least I did in the past) weddings to be tortuous. Sometimes it’s just a feeling of, “yes, I’m so very happy that you are happy, but I’d really rather not buy you a toaster or wear this silly dress, thank you very much.” Other times it’s more like, “if I don’t get away from this table of all of my married friends and their children, I am going to stab myself in the eye… oh wait… there’s vodka. I’ll just go drink ALL of it instead.” And even worse than that are the times where I try to convince myself that I’m not happy because THEY aren’t ACTUALLY happy either. I try to convince myself that there’s something wrong with THEM that is keeping ME from rejoicing with them.

But, in all of those cases, I am pretty sure it is actually a “me” thing.

Because, if those same friends called me with a crisis, I can’t imagine thinking “Your aren’t ACTUALLY sad. You just THINK you are sad, so I’m just not going to be sad with you right now.” That seems pretty ridiculous, and yet…

This year has been an emotional roller coaster for me. If there was an emotion to be had, I’ve had it, X 1000. Most of these have been what you might call “bad.” In my most difficult, most heartbreaking moments, the outpouring of love I received was beautiful and more than I could have expected. Everyone close to me, and even many people not so close to me, showed support and compassion. It was humbling.

Unexpectedly and awesomely, I also had some of the happiest moments of my life this year, most notably, falling in love. For the most part, the show of support from my closest friends and family has again been amazing and humbling… for the most part. Unfortunately, I have to qualify this because there have been some for whom it has been impossible to be truly happy with me. And, you know what? I get it.

I get it because I’ve been in those moments where a good friend was experiencing love and happiness, and I just couldn’t go there with them. I get it, but it doesn’t hurt any less. In fact, it makes me feel even worse that I’ve done this to others, and I know I can never rewind to that moment where I should have rejoiced with them—should have, but didn’t.

So, what can I do about it? I suppose the only thing to do is decide that from here on out, I will do my best to continue to be there for my friends when they need comforting, but to be just as there for them when they need celebrating… and to rejoice first, and ask questions later.

[also, HUGE thanks and much love to Holly Holladay for becoming the epitome of the “rejoice now, ask questions later” philosophy!]