Wherein I may or may not make up everything as I go.

A few years back, I considered children something I'd at one point wind up acquiring, but where specifics were concerned I had very little (read: nothing) laid out. I had no idea when or with whom, and I had no idea what to do with the things once they showed up.

You may notice I am saying "children" and "them" here, as opposed to "a child" and "it." I did at the time have the quantity pegged at two, and there it remains for the time being. I cannot conceivably see it being raised any higher, unless of course I go completely insane (though I suppose my many children would probably be removed from my custody at that point anyway).

Anyway, these days I still haven't the foggiest idea when they'll show up or who will pop them out into the world, but one very significant aspect of my handle on the concept has undergone a dramatic change. Perhaps it's because I was in a situation which put the possibility much closer to reality than it had ever been, and that I've therefore developed an attachment born out of that period of relative proximity. Perhaps I've just matured some. In any case, I find myself considering the notion more fondly -- and as well with more enthusiasm -- than I ever have in the past.

Now then, why am I thinking about this in the first place? And, more importantly, why am I bothering to write about it in so public a medium? Because, my dear (and frequently misrepresented) Watson, I overheard a coworker mention something offhandedly which made me realize that -- despite my newfound state of lukewarm fuzziness at the prospect of children I can call my own -- I am sorely in need of organizing my thoughts pertaining to the matter, and having a public audience will force me to be reasonable and at least somewhat thorough in doing so.

This of course begs the question, "What was it you overheard?" Something quite unassuming, as a matter of fact, something that I'd normally not be likely even to hear. My coworker (we'll call him Tony, that being his name) was talking about how easy it was to entertain his two-year-old son in contrast to his teenage daughter. "I can just take him to the park and let him run around," Tony said, audibly relishing the simplicity his son's easy amusement was affording him. "Bam, half a day gone."

There, that was it. Half a day.

Not gonna lie, that snippet right there struck me with a bit of worry. "What the hell do you do with a kid the other half day? And what about the whole one lined up in the chamber right after that?" Seriously!

So, okay, the kid's maybe sort of tuckered out after rampaging around in a field like a feral dog for three hours. At that age, I guess I'd probably be on course to catching a few recuperative winks. But you can't let them sleep too long during the day, right? Because then they'll just be up half the night rampaging around in their room like a... well, like an energetic but otherwise normal dog. That's no good. So they're down for an hour. That's a total of four (out of roughly twelve available) day hours spent. Eight hours left -- a full work day, a length of time during which I sometimes find myself with nothing to do despite it being other peoples' jobs to see to it that no hand falls idle. Throw a few meals in there, and we're down perhaps another two hours. Six hours! That's enough time to drive across the state at a leisurely pace and still have time to stop for peeing and power naps as often as I'd like! Do we play catch, the kid and me? Can a child even throw anything heavier than a fit at two years old? Maybe he watches some TV. But what if he's sick of PBS and the History Channel, and all the cartoons left on the air by that time are total brain-sucking shit? Throw on some Python and hope the Gilliam segues are enough to keep him entertained for the six hours remaining before it's time for him to go cower under the covers and learn how to fear at the imaginary hands of whatever he mistakenly believes has set up camp beneath the bed he's about to wet?

Do two-year-olds even sleep in beds? God I'm clueless.

Perhaps I could give him my old Legos. Or, you know, something as equally facilitating of self-directed creation that at the same time isn't small enough for the little idiot to jam just far enough down his own throat to necessitate a surprise visit to the ER.

Yes, I understand that the above is some very slippery slope-play, but what I'm trying to do is illustrate why this fear exists for me -- all those considerations, all those possibilities, and yet I didn't even finish out a full day in the life of  my Alternate Reality Future-Self. Even extrapolating out ten and twenty steps down the line, I haven't yet begun to scratch the surface of the possible. Terrifying.

And yes, I know that this exact variety of fear can be found in any day-to-day situation, and yet I've not wound up underneath a bus or with my ribs broken at the bottom of a stairwell or even with an upset stomach from spoilt milk with my cereal. We adapt to the unfamiliar and the off-the-cuff, and we usually come out on top (or at the very least survive). I understand that it  is supremely unlikely that I will have no idea which end to cover with a diaper, or that I'll expect an infant to throw a pizza in the oven when he gets hungry despite his nearly-complete lack of motor skills (not to mention a woefully inadequate culinary skill set).

In short, I suppose that all this really boils down to is a big, "I'm not ready yet." I'm not even ready to try to be ready. However, from where I'm standing, I'm pretty sure I can see the silhouette of readiness off on the horizon, somewhere a good ways farther down the path I've been on these last few years. It's a little difficult to tell if I'm closing the gap any from this distance and at this pace, but seeing anything at all is a marked improvement over the shut-eyed wandering I had once made a habit of; it's there ahead of me and, although it is itself a terrifying thing, I am willingly putting one foot in front of the other on my way toward it. In time, in time.

Now then, before closing, I'd like to take a moment to offer my congratulations to anybody who has given a child a good upbringing; you may as well go climb Everest or perhaps just begin levitating by sheer force of will, because you've already accomplished the most difficult task a human being can take upon themselves to complete. Go take a vacation.

As for me, I'll just continue to cower under the covers for a little while longer, slowly trying to figure out how to overcome the fear of the very real future beneath the bed I'm about to wet.

FRIDAY.

It is Friday. Was, rather, it was Friday. Last day of the week, a day when literally anything is possible.

I chose this day to --

THE PAST.

Pardon me, but I've forgotten some necessary back-story.

See, in early June I'd attempted to replace the easily-pliable, ten-foot-long springs on my WRX with a set of progressive lowering springs from Epic Engineering. That didn't go so well off the cuff, but after a week I managed to get my replacement shock (to fix the top hat perch I'd snapped) and camber bolt (to replace the one I'd stripped to hell), and got the car back on the road.

All was well for about 15 miles, at which time I noticed that the car was encountering bumps -- bumps which were previously merely noticeable -- in a way that I would have to classify as "frighteningly jarring." (And, no, not "my car has been lowered and I notice things more" jarring, but rather "my car has fallen off of a cliff and onto a bomb" jarring.) I was pissed. Got the car home, jacked it up, pulled off the front passenger-side wheel, and very quickly noticed the cause of my discomfort: oil and more oil bleeding out of the strut.

Bitching.

Checked the other side, which was fine, put things back together, and went inside to seethe and consider my options. Koni had announced pricing and ship dates for their new Sport adjustable shocks and strut inserts, and said pricing was very reasonable (thank you, promotional sale). The only other option (aside from reordering OEM units, which were upwards of $220 or so per unit) was a set of as-of-yet-unreleased shocks and struts from Bilstein. These were not adjustable, and were much more expensive, and were also unavailable, so Koni it was (no hard feelings, Bilstein). Unfortunately, the Konis were on backorder for another month (thanks again, promotional sale). Whatever, I clicked Buy.

Then I waited.

Then, after a couple of weeks, I began to notice this weird kind of ticking from the front passenger side, which I attributed to a CV joint or wheel bearing that was becoming increasingly agitated by the harsh impacts it was having to deal with. And, to my great delight, it was getting worse. Like, "I am afraid to make left turns for fear of losing the whole hub" worse. Equal parts infuriated and terrified, I cut driving it back to the bare necessities.

Well, eventually that "weird kind of ticking" had evolved into a nearly constant grinding noise that only went away when exposing the wheel to positive or negative acceleration (lateral forces had little effect). It had became so bad, in fact, that I could no longer ignore it, and so I called up Subaru to have them take a look (it was time for the first round of maintenance anyway, so what the hell).

But even after setting up an appointment, I was so mad at myself for being unable to pinpoint the issue that I relaunched my search and stumbled upon this archived post from the SaabCentral forums, which described my issue to a T. And, what's more, it didn't have to do with costly CV joints or wheel hubs! Unfortunately, it did have to do with me admitting to being a totally absent-minded amateur (I am).

I was missing a lug nut, and I had been for easily a hundred miles. The result? The lug nuts adjacent to the absentee had also worked themselves loose, and the grinding was actually the sound of the wheel lugs getting very cozy with the lug holes to the tune of 800 rotations per mile. "FML," as they say.

Anyway, long story short, I had Subaru slap a new lug nut on there when I took it in for maintenance. They called me back and said, "Your car is done. Also, you've got a nail in your tire and will need a new one." In response, I bought a full set of Star Specs. (Buy my old tires.)

My problems had been solved, or so I thought.

AS I WAS SAYING: "FRIDAY."

My Koni Yellows finally showed up around the 20th of July (45 or so days after blowing the passenger strut, which was slowly joined in its grave by the overworked driver's-side unit), along with a slew of Whiteline bushings and some RalliTek sway bars and end links. I was going to fix my problems!

Fate, which had apparently not had enough laughs at my expense by this time, thought otherwise. I lugged all my crap over to mom's garage, unloaded, and was beginning to remove the front wheels when...

Sudden stop. The lug nut which Subaru had replaced wouldn't budge, and neither would the other two on either side of it. My thoughts at this point are, "What the shit." I had a torch, I had penetrating oil, and I (of course) had a big ol' breaker bar, but I was hesitant to try to force the things off. Why? Well, the threads had obviously been damaged during the many miles I'd been driving short a lug nut, and putting the new one on had cross-threaded some pretty mangled metal. What if I couldn't get them back on again after removing them? What if I broke the studs clean off? I didn't want to be without a car altogether (I'd already spent 16 years of my life in that situation, after all).

So, in a dazzling display of good judgment, I replaced the lugs I'd removed from the front, and shifted operations to the back. That end was easier anyway, since I wouldn't have to do any drilling and cutting (which frankly terrified me).

There's not much to say about that, either. I removed the old shocks (which were in fine working order), swapped the springs onto the Konis, reinserted in the vehicle, and bolted everything back up.

Oh, there is something though. You may (but shouldn't) recall that, last time, I had a hell of a time with a bar trying to pry the rear arms down low enough to get the shock assembly in and out. Well, this time it really was not looking like I was going to be able to get things out at all in the first place (my bar had gotten bent last time, and I was therefore down on leverage). Fortunately, I found that the scissor jack, when turned upside-down, fit neatly between the body of the car and the upper arm, allowing me to very easily maneuver the arms however I needed. Worked like a charm.

Some say wussier swaybars can't even be conceived.

So, right, that was all taken care of. Had some extra time what with not having to do the struts, so I took care of the sways and end links, packed up my stuff, and headed out.

FOR THE LAST DAMNED TIME, FRIDAY.

One week had elapsed, during which I'd gotten new wheel studs in on the front passenger side and replaced all damaged lug nuts (four, as it turns out; thanks, service department of Ganley Westside). It was Friday yet again, and I was back on the road to mom's place, car loaded down with new things for me to break.

And yet, amazingly -- flabbergastingly, even, if that is possible -- I didn't break shit. I know, I can't believe it either!

So, right, the fun stuff. Pulled off the struts, and this is the condition in which I found them:

McHydraulicfluid

This was obviously no good, so I proceeded to drill out the bottoms and drain the hydraulic fluid within. Fun fact: I've heard this is supposed to be some of the most foul-smelling stuff that could conceivably come out of a car, transmission fluid included. I figured that was mostly rubbish, since they only had about three thousand miles on them. However, as it turns out, the stuff does in fact smell like a gigantic smashed ladybug (if you're not familiar, the short of it is, "Yes, it's the worst"). I didn't have a proper container into which to drain the vile stuff, so it took the place of an 80-degree cup of fast food soda.

After that came some pretty straightforward (but tedious) hacksaw-ing off of the tops of the struts, followed by gutting and further draining. In case you don't know how to imagine a cut pipe, here's a photograph:

Decapitation was the only suitable end for this rat bastard.

And that's that! All that was left was to slip in the new inserts and bolt things up. Oh, right, except my hex wrenches were too small, and by this point it was 11:30pm. Well shit.

SATURDAY.

New inserts, old bodies.

No sob story here: I went out in the morning, bought a set of standard and metric hex sockets, and returned to the garage. I reassembled the struts (which turned out beautifully, thanks for asking), put everything back together, and packed back up.

I twisted that thing.

And that was that! The car handles like all the dreams, even moreso after having ridden on what was essentially a leaping, crashing dolphin for the 45 days leading in. Even after all the hassle and idiocy, I am nothing but thrilled: I learned loads, got a lot of new tools, and improved my car.

But what was the biggest lesson I've learned? That vertically-oriented photos are a bitch to arrange in an attractive fashion in a post like this.

So, this weekend I thought I would make a nice little project out of putting some new springs (a new release from former Prodrive engineer Dan Antonielli's startup, Epic Engineering) on my car (a 2010 Impreza WRX). My goal with the car is to make something that, as I see it, could (and should) be had from the factory, and that means keeping every new part below the "XTREME" line. So, that in mind, today's adventure is ironically not brought to you by the letter "subtlety."

As it was.

To the left you'll find a photograph of my car before I got my stupid ham-fists on it. It is calm, it is serene, it is unadulterated. It's sitting in my mother's garage in this photo, and the trunk is popped because it needed to be de-carpeted to allow me access to the bolts keeping the shocks from just falling out.

Now, I'd like to point out that I've never really done something quite so mechanical as disassemble suspension components before. I have replaced hoses, spark plugs, ignition coils, and other such lean-over-and-un-screw-some-things parts before, but this was breaking new ground for me. That said, I knew I was probably going to be in a rather foul mood and spouting all sorts of appropriately foul words in no time, so I wanted to put myself in a place where people generally aren't (hence mom's garage), put on some R.E.M., get mad and dirty, and make a day of it.

Well, I forgot the R.E.M., so I moved straight on to mad and dirty. In retrospect, I don't know why I didn't just throw on one of the many other CDs I cart around with me, but I guess I was rather stubbornly set on R.E.M. That's probably a good point to take away from this: I'm awfully stubborn sometimes.

Anyway, things were going along reasonably well. Yes, I had to compress and decompress that first spring about a billion times, and then another billion after that getting the new one on because I would always wind up having the long end of one of the compressors in the way of something necessary, or needing to move out of some small gap that I needed to get the vice grips through, or... well, really just those two things, but I found myself in one of the two situations so constantly that by the end I was turning into a crazy person. Also, due to the rear suspension being a rather compact multilink setup, I found myself using every available limb on my body to pry things down and wrench at things in order to get the shock assembly in and out. At one point I was actually on my back, using my right leg to press down on a pry bar, my left leg for leverage for said prying, and my arms to jam the assembly back into place before the bar slipped and everything closed back up.

But, one run to the store for a deeper socket and some PB Blaster and a whole lotta swearin' later, the driver's-side rear was done and back in. And I was thrilled.

Subtlety was not here.

The second rear was loads easier getting out, and things seemed to be going quite swimmingly until my grandpa wandered over to try to convince me to wrap things up because it was getting late (it was not getting that late, but I do not fault him; he just did not want me to meet an early end at the hands of falling-car-syndrome). Anyway, at this point I was about to separate the top hat from the shock itself, so I had the assembly across my lap and my ratchet on the lock nut. Now, I don't know if I had bumped the ratchet from "loosen" to "tighten," or if I merely thought I was loosening and just paying no attention whatsoever, but, whatever the reason, I was unable to turn that nut at all. So what did I do? I didn't stop talking for a second to think about what I was doing, I didn't check to see if I was even trying to turn the right way (something which I'm typically a nazi about with other people); no, instead I reached for a big-ass length of copper pipe, slipped it over the end to give me a ton more twisting power, and just cranked away. And wouldn't you know it, it actually began to turn, and it continued to do so until the pressure of the now way-too-tight lock nut split the top hat seat clear down the side.

It was at that point that I realized that I was a dumbass.

Rather than learn from that and take the hint that I had fried my brain with heat and cusses, I decided to solidify my position as a dumbass and "fix" this broken perch with what else but a zip-tie. I figured my apartment was close by and the roads en route were smooth, so I'd just limp it back and leave it in the garage until I could get my hands on a new shock (I do not believe that little perch can be had individually). So, I reassembled everything, got it all back in place, and took the car down off its stands. This is what it looked like:

Imperceptibly lower.

If you're looking from this picture to the one up top (which you probably aren't) and are unable to tell the difference, well, neither can I. It'll settle down in a week or so, though, and then it'll be nice and ever-so-slightly less SUV-like.

At this point I was pretty mad at myself, so I took my grandpa's advice and headed indoors for the night.

THE NEXT DAY.

I was up early to finish things off. I knew the fronts were supposed to be easier, and my head was no longer so full of thunder and lightning, so I was in pretty high spirits. Got out there, took things apart, put things back together, and all was fine and dandy, until...

Hang onto that "until" for a second while I provide just a bit of backstory. See, I had a largish brass pipe that I was using as a cheater bar with my smaller ratchets (the very same pipe which so readily facilitated my first failure). It slid on and off those smaller ratchets without drama, as should be the case with a cheater bar. However, the deep sockets I needed for this required my larger ratchet, which was just a little too broad to fit in the pipe. Turns out my hammer thought differently, and a few solid swings later I had effectively fused the two together for all of eternity. What does this mean? It means that whenever I had to use a socket that required the permanently-lengthened big ratchet, I had at my disposal way more twist than should ever be applied to the shitty bubblegum metal bits that Subaru uses to build their cars' most critical components.

You can probably see where this is headed (quite literally, in fact; there are pictures).

Things were going really well with the front end. Like, so well I was singin' and (ever so slightly) skipping around. The end was in sight! I would soon be free of my comical wheel-well gap! So great was my enthusiasm that it bade me forsake discipline and leave my torque wrench on the sidelines, relying instead on my "skills" to tell me when the very last bolt was properly tightened.

Nor was it here.

As it turns out, "properly tightened" when translated by a three-foot breaker bar becomes "stripped." And not only was this a stripped bolt, but it's a stripped camber bolt which cannot be found on the shelves of your friendly neighborhood hardware store (at least not my friendly neighborhood hardware store).

So, the last thing between me and slapping the wheels back on and driving (gingerly) away is presently chilling in the parts bin of a closed-on-Sundays Subaru dealership. I guess that's probably for the best since it rather forces me to buy a replacement shock instead of relying on the makeshift zip-tie cast holding the rear in place.

And that is the story of how enthusiasm ruined everything forever.

No license needed to captain this vessel.

They don't. In fact, even "zucchini raft" is really quite overoptimistic.

Speaking of overoptimistic, you should try some of these boats. "Mmm" is for "mmmediocre."

Anyway, it's been a good long while since I plunked down here and went about attempting to distract people with words and pictures; four months nearly to the day since I've made something worth mentioning. Well, that's not entirely true, really, but it has been quite some time. What got me back to pushing down buttons again? Other cooking, obviously.

I had a buddy over the other night, and we decided we'd try our collective hands at "Enchilada Lasagna," which was a recipe we'd come across on an episode of Alton Brown's Good Eats. It was indeed good eats. So good were the eats that my heart ached to again spend more than I should on supplies, to again waste away a weekend evening spinning around in the kitchen, and to again eat enough for three people. So what did I do?

Ruined my streak of never buying mushrooms.

I remembered something. Ho-ly shit.

Backstory: A few (six) weeks ago, I took a trip with some friends to see some friends in Colorado. (This has no relevance whatsoever to the outcome of the story, but now you know where I was.) Now, since we were there for quite a while, and it was really just being in a house where other people lived (while said other people went about their daily routines until the evening when we all came to life), there was a decent lot of television-watching. This was a pleasant surprise for me, because I haven't watched copious amounts of television in a very long while, and, frankly, I miss doing so. Some of it was crappy music-channel disposable programming about nobody-cares-what, some of it was of the soap variety, and some was cooking. It was in this last portion that I saw a lady cook some things that made me take note.

Zucchinis' back-sides.

Her name was Rachael Ray, and she made some vegetarian zucchini boats. There were bits of mint, mushrooms, herbs -- exactly the same sort of stuff that small- to medium-sized ground animals subsist on. And you know what? It looked good. I sort of hate mushrooms, and there is no such thing as a vegetable which can raise my pulse, and yet this culinary witchdoctor had voodoo'd me into a stupor with her mint and her mushrooms and her herbs. And so I took some very shoddy notes, which also included a bit about "adding sassage" in order to make it into an actual meal.

FAST-FORWARD TO THE PRESENT DAY. It's Friday, there are no plans, and I'm feeling like it's an appropriate time to postpone going to the gym. "You haven't cooked anything in a while, you lazy ass," I say to myself. And so, after a moment of rather dull recollection, I decided I'd make some stuffed zucchini boats. I left work, I bought things, I returned home.

Oh my God, I just remembered I also bought delicious lemon squares. I am going to eat those so hard.

This is what cooked food looks like.

Anyway, yes. I returned home and I got to the cookin'.

Now, I looked for the same recipe I saw on the television, but I couldn't find it. I referred to the aforementioned notes, but all they said were:

Zucchini boats! Mushrooms? Add sassage. Mint.

My note was of no use to me. So I went off of this one instead, and by "went off" I mean "looked at, largely disregarded, and improvised based in theory upon." I used "some" tomatoes and "less" onion, two links of spicy Italian sausage (which was not called for), half a portabella mushroom (also not called for), and pecorino romano in place of parmesan and mozzarella. Actually, that's pretty close to the original, just heartier.

I would like to point out that this recipe says simply to scrape out the zucchini guts and then bake the zucchini for a little bit to soften it up some. Another recipe I dug up (which I think was in fact one of Ray's) mentioned boiling the zucchinis (whole, guts in tact) for a few minutes before gutting, and made no mention of pre-baking whatsoever. Having found the zucchini to be a bit tough in mine (which were not boiled, but rather pre-baked) I would have to recommend this. The instructions were to boil until "tender," but not "soft." I'd imagine a good run under cold water afterward would be wise.

But, honestly, like I've said a couple times, they didn't turn out so hot, which I attribute to me disregarding the instructions. I mean, they weren't bad -- if I ordered a couple in a restaurant, I wouldn't be sending them back, but I also probably wouldn't be ordering them again in the future.

The friendly fungus.

The real point is this: I willingly ate a rather large quantity of mushrooms. Also I ate a few slivers fried and lightly salted but otherwise plain. That's crazy talk to me, because I think eating mushrooms is crazy talk. They're weird, man. Like, okay, I read that I had to be careful when cleaning or sautéing them because they "might absorb some liquid." Holy understatement, Batman. These things are like cloth. For example: I had some oil coming up to heat in a small pan and dropped in a few slivers to fry up so I could say I ate mushrooms plain. This is all well and good, until the oil around the mushrooms actually disappears and the slivers are several shades darker around the edges like a wet cloth.

Fine, maybe "something being absorbent" is not the wildest thing you've ever heard, but I thought it was something.

And why are they so soft? They are gross food. Cutting them sounds like cutting styrofoam. Gross.

But, honestly, they weren't bad. Their flavor did not overpower the rest (the sausage took care of that), but did come through with a good bit of definition. Interesting new flavor, but it definitely will not be showing up on my pizza any time soon.

So, in closing, what did I learn today? That I prefer romano to parmesan, and that mushrooms are precisely as off-putting as I had previously suspected them to be. (Also that URLLoaders don't fire init events.)

The Finished Product

Another week gone, another food did.

This week's special? Tiny pie! Four tiny pies, as a matter of fact. They are all apple, because it is an easy filling to produce (in my experience, which is limited to just this one time). They are all ugly because dough is the bane of my existence (a delicious, delicious bane).

Did I make a nice home-cooked meal for the pie(s) to accompany? Hell no. Pie is my home-cooked meal, fool. Which, I think, is probably the most badass thing one can do with a pie: consume it as a means of subsistence. Well, no, scratch that. The most badass thing to do with a pie is to throw it in a clown's face as much force as is humanly possible, because to beat up a clown with a pie would be "aces." (Sorry, clowns.)

Anyway, yes, tiny pies. A larger pie, although about equal in volume to the four ramekins I used, intimidated me just a bit too much, and I frankly don't care for the in-pan mess of a full-size pie midway through its consumption. I'd rather have a nice standalone unit that I can consume in its entirety without running the risk of eating 100% of a pie. I know I'm trying to remedy my drowned-rat physique put on a little weight, but eating an entire pie for dinner at 3am is not how I'd like to accomplish that task.

Speaking of accomplishing tasks, how did I accomplish these four small ones? As I've previously mentioned, I regularly begin my culinary weekend getaways with a quick (read: usually time-consuming and occasionally frustrating) stop by www.allrecipes.com, where I poke around for general ideas to set me off toward something I'd actually enjoy. This week, however, it was Google that took my hand and guided me to... well, to where I am. I wound up at a little place called Novel Eats which, although a vegan establishment and therefore of little use to me, gets bonus points by having a name similar to the esteemed Alton Brown's Good Eats television program.

The recipe (http://www.noveleats.com/dessert/mini-apple-pies/) I found was pretty much exactly what I was after, needing only a couple alterations from me. I used two Jonagold and one Granny Smith apple, slivered up real thin-like so as to allow thorough cook-through (I hate me a crunchy apple pie), and the four ramekins rather than the muffin tin that the recipe calls for. (6 muffins = 4 ramekins, in case you ever wondered. And yes, I do realize that a "muffin" is not mutually comparable to a "ramekin." I think we will survive.) Other than that, I had to swap the recipe's nutmeg for a bit of ground ginger (I have no nutmeg). Oh, and also I put a few cut up pats of butter atop the pie filling before laying on the top crust, as I saw this called for in a number of other recipes. Also also, I gave it a little brown sugar/cinnamon egg wash at the end (hence the slime).

That's it! This recipe plus the above changes (and an additional five or so minutes of cook time to account for their larger volume) will produce these tiny pies. They are ideally sized for a scoop of iced cream! Good iced cream. I swear to God, if you dare put Neopolitan iced cream on top of one of my tiny pies, you will be that knocked-out clown.

I have a confession to make.

I haven't eaten a pie yet. I mean, I've eaten pie, but not one of these. They just came out of the oven a few minutes ago, and they are still very hot. Also, I'm nervous. Every new type of thing I make gets me pretty antsy when it comes down to eating time, and this one (having prepared with alarmingly little incident) is no exception. I shall edit once I've determined whether these ugly little pies are worth reproducing.

THE VERDICT: These pies are killer. Killer.

I will begin by saying I totally copped out on the whole one-drawing-per-hour-of-consciousness thing. But just a little totally! I mean, I definitely drew some things, and they even coincided with what I was doing around that specific hour, but I only produced six out of a possible 18-20. I don't think that's too bad though, considering a lot of them were quick-doodled at work (slow day). Yes, I did touch them up or re-do them later on. Is that okay? Did I break the law? Of course not; there are no laws, silly.

But, point is, I kind of like them! I mean, I clearly suck, but I'm improving! There's some emotion, even! Sure, sure, I make an instant fool out of myself once I venture below the neckline (and, well, probably when I stay above it, too...), and poses and things are very stiff and all that, but I do not mind. I liked drawing when I was young, dammit, and I'm enjoying it now. Don't expect I'll actually get to be any good at it, but it'll be fun to bust out a halfway decent doodle every now and again.

For example, say I were to become a teacher one day (I won't, but we can use our imaginations), and in my class was this kid who had a "good heart" but was also sort of an idiot. I could draw a little caricature of myself in the upper-left corner explaining what this kid did wrong. I would look wise, but also approachable (due largely to being a cartoon). I would be wearing a cartoon tweed jacket, and would possibly have a full cartoon beard.

Now then:

6:14am. If you replace the last frame's caption with "THOROUGH BEWILDERMENT " and give me a matching expression, it's 100% accurate.

10:00am. As a recovering nail-biter, I have my good and my bad days. Today, at roughly 10am, I was experiencing a "bad day." The rest is just me ragging on myself for having deplorable hand-drawing skillz.

12:00pm. I realized at this point that I was kind of digging the doodles. It's not funny at all.

1:00pm. It's very cold in the office around 1pm, and that means my bodily functions begin to slow. It's mighty hard for me to stay awake when I get cold.

2:00pm. What I'm admitting to here is that there's not much to draw about at work. I sit at a desk and push buttons while my eyesight is slowly whittled away.

3:00pm. Cop-out ensues. I did return from the meeting, but there was nothing left to draw about (also, I got real busy).

And what did I learn from all this? My hand is not steady.

Round two.

After Friday's social-event-shaped meal interruption and Saturday's me-sleeping-until-six, I finally found my way back into a kitchen this evening (my own; I try to make it something of a habit to not just appear in other folks' kitchens). I was still bent on putting asparagus in the same place as chicken, but beyond that I hadn't yet any idea what I'd do. Stir fry seemed a pretty obvious choice, and that made me uncomfortable (it always seems like a cop-out).

I paid a visit to AllRecipes.com for some inspiration, which, in an unusually brief span of time, I did indeed find. Fajitas! Kind of! Really just a wrap, but the recipe in question decided against such a bland name. And why not? It's like a party! ("Fajita," being vaguely similar to "fiesta," more-than-subtly implies a party to me.)

Unfortunately, the only ingredient I had on hand was the chicken, but that needed some time to marinade and I had a bit of running to do anyway, so that worked out well. I cut it into diagonal-type strips, imprisoned it in a Ziploc bag with some Italian dressing and red pepper flakes, and headed out the door.

First stop was the store, which I found out was a bad idea. See, I often wind up doing my grocery shopping around 10pm. I prefer this because the place is deserted and nobody's around to watch me pace absentmindedly up and down the same aisle two times trying to remember what I'm after, and then another two on top of that actually looking it, before realizing I'm in the wrong aisle altogether. No such luck today; every idiot with a driver's license and ten bucks was in that place, and I was right there with 'em.

Apparently today is playing host to a football game (or so I'm told; I did not consult the Internet to confirm), so there were a lot of guys in crooked hats and pajama pants buying beer I wouldn't even consider feeding to a dog, as well as many a grim middle-aged woman with nachos, frozen wings, and probably a hatred for men. There was one early-thirties business-type fellow in a nice trench coat buying only a single DiGiorno pizza, which he held in one hand. I felt bad that he had to wait in line with all the frat guys and angry women just to eat his dinner. I didn't see what kind of pizza he had.

Anyway. Bought my stuff, got the hell out, drove home, realized I forgot to go to the bank, drove to the bank, acquired some bills, drove back, put some money on my laundry card, got freaked out by the giant monster noises issuing from the laundry room (demon washer), talked to my crazy neighbor (twice; he too was spooked by the noises), and finally got down to business.

The rest is pretty much me cooking by the book, with the addition of some quartered grape tomatoes, so I don't suppose there's a whole lot to say. It was very tasty, didn't cost a ton, and ought to reheat well. Plus, it's probably the first dish I've put together that, despite being like 75% vegetables, didn't scream "this asshole didn't get enough meat."

What do you need to make it?

• One chicken breast (cubed or whatever)
• Two thirds of a "bunch" of asparagus (cut into two-inch... parts)
• Two bell peppers (julienned)
• One third of a red onion (diced)
• A half-cup of grape tomatoes (quartered)
• Two cloves of garlic (minced)
• Some sesame oil
• Some balsamic vinegar
• Some soy sauce
• Some lemon juice
• Seasonings (you figure it out)
• Tortillas or wraps or whatever

Once you've rustled up all that garbage, cook it. Saute the chicken with the oil until it's done being pink, then toss in the rest of the crap (excluding maybe the tomatoes, which will probably overcook if put in at this point). Add a bit more oil. After a while, add the tomatoes. Cook until it looks like you should be eating it instead of cooking it any longer. Ingest. Digest.

See what I did there? I combined the word "asparagus" with the name "Gustav" to create a totally new word! It's like genetic engineering, only my grain hasn't become any more resilient.

Truth is I couldn't muster up anything a) better, while still remaining b) relevant to my topic, so I fell back on my old standby: when in doubt, sound like an idiot.

Anyway, it's nearly Friday, and that means I'm supposed to cook something I haven't cooked before. Well, the job hasn't paid in a while (which is just too cool), so I'm feeling cheap. Would I like a steak? Yes, I would like a steak; I have not eaten a steak in an amount of time which spans beyond the (admittedly feeble) reaches of my memory. But, being cheap, I'll have to settle with our good friend gallus gallus domesticus, the Land Tuna, the necessarily versatile chicken.

Also asparagus, which I had previously revealed to you by proxy of awful joke.

But in what way? In what way?

I am open to suggestions! Guide my trembling, idiot hands around sharp tools and hot surfaces; point my naive and wandering eyes at... chicken and asparagus, and also ancillary ingredients. Help me help you feed me.

Ah, I've still got "it." (Joke.)

No, I am clearly hell of out of practice. I haven't seriously tried to draw something since early high school, and I've never had good drawing "habits" of the sort I could fall back on in the first place (like reducing things to basic shapes and all that sort of nonsense... I'm a lousy drawer of action, baby).

Okay, so, as my first violently-shuddering baby steps back into the terrifying world of drawing, I've decided to try to do a little cartoon self-portrait of myself (just in case "self-portrait" didn't convey the subject). Now, I do understand that this could be interpreted as a rather self-aggrandizing move, but hear me out: I know what my face looks like, so I can actually focus on cartoonifying it rather than suffer the constant derailment I'd be subjected to by every little crag and jagged protrusion an unfamiliar face would present. So, my face it was.

That said, I found out I actually have no idea what I look like. Like, none. See, at best, I'm used to what I look like backwards, thanks to those lying bastard mirrors. Fixing this pretty much just involved flipping the hair and usually-cocked eyebrow, but a surprise it was nonetheless. And no sooner did I run headlong into clear that hurdle than I went about giving myself a Mexi-stache, a button nose, game-show-host hair, and a chin far too assertive to be realistic. Good thing I only use pen! (har) Finally, once I thought I got one at least halfway passable and decided to compare it to a photo, I couldn't tell if they were even remotely similar. It's like I'm blind (except that I can see).

So consider yourself warned: I may well have just drawn Jay Leno with a soul patch a hundred times and I would not know it.

Hopefully I'll be able to do a full cartoony body at some point, but that water's still well beyond my clearance level. For the time being, I'll stick to misrepresenting just my head.

I know what happened, but it seems more appropriate for me to be saying "I have no idea how this came to be."

I'd like to think I actually had a half-decent meal idea here. I wanted to do a sort of fancy spin on a fancy Southern take on a stir fry, fancily. I had some brown and wild rice just hanging out in the cupboard, so that went in with some chicken stock to ricify you know, cook. I had that stir-fry-cut chicken I mentioned this afternoon, which I thought I'd batter and fry up beforehand. After that, I planned to just stir fry the chicken and rice together with (I had no idea what else I was going to use, so I was just sort of waiting on divine inspiration).

The problem came up in the frying stage. See, I'm a bum deep fryer. If it's not a nacho chip and I'm not a sixteen-year-old employed by Taco Bell, it probably isn't going to turn out well; I always wind up burnt, at least slightly slicked, and with a load of clean up. On top of that, I can never tell when the stuff's done cooking. It was chicken in this case, so I really didn't want to pull it out when it looked properly browned just to find it was still semi-opaque and salmonella-y in the center. Hell, I don't even have a kitchen thermometer, so I always wind up frying too hot (this situation will be rectified in a few days, thankfully). Anyway, point is a third of the chicken burnt up like a champ.

So now I've got this chicken on my hands that I'd really rather not put back into a pan for a second frying, what with having been fried to within an inch of a second death and all. The rice is pretty much fine, but not strong enough on its own to constitute a side to some burnt nuggets (plus, that would suck). So I just dumped the better pieces of chicken in the pot with the rice and lidded that up while I went about trying to prepare a little gravy.

The gravy (broth, a bit of white zin, some Italian dressing, a slice of butter, herbs, flour) actually turned out pretty good, and its acidity (thank you vinegar and wine) masked some of the charred undertones in the chicken (I told you I killed the stuff). I just dumped it all in a bowl, and am presently picking at it. Not what I'd intended.

However, upon geting to this point, I think that gravy would do well as the stir fry sauce should I decide to attempt this one again. Maybe some fresh green beans and jalapeños fried up in it? I really dig a bit of jalapeño with chicken-and-rice dishes, so I just may. Suggestions? Although I'm sure I'd like it, it's a bit too close to my standard fare to be of much benefit to my palate.