for a little while everything was frosty and nice, i took a walk down to the bay, the first in weeks. it was so quiet i could hear the hum of the world carried over the frozen water. the ice is not strong enough to walk on, otherwise i might have just followed its call and wandered out onto the sea, dusk be damned. i am having some seriously mixed feelings about what it is i want to do and where i want to be. mostly the problem is that i have no clue, though. and there is a part of me that is way too pleased with things as they are, nothing, nowhere...
i am not happy, but the things i can think of, especially the ones that are possible right now — i don't want them.
the insomnia issue is worse than ever and it's made even more so by the fact that i have to get out of bed by a certain hour if i plan on catching a bus that will take me to the shops and back, once in a while at least. i usually fall asleep at 6 AM now, and don't sleep well, so nothing is enough. overtiredness, combined with trying to buy loads of sensible stuff while craving anything but, is a recipe for disaster. living in the city was easier in this respect. popping into a corner market late in the evening was no issue and i could always just get what i needed for a day or two instead of putting my back out hauling half the store home.
staying up has proven productive, however, or is starting to. the porcini cookies above are proof. i got the mushroom cookie cutter in ireland, from a lovely little shop in cork, but never used it until now. once i figured the cookies will look like porcinis when finished, i went ahead and added them, dried and pulverized, to the melted chocolate and sprinkled half with salt, half with green nonpareil. the salty ones are nothing short of amazing. i also made little round ones to fill with rosehip paste later. they are all for my friend's party this weekend.
today was foggy and strange. i cooked a mean curry with swede cubes, chinese cabbage and green lentils. felt ridiculous joy caused by new panties that fit. being a buttless, bustless wonder, finding small enough underwear is always cause for celebration. i've been practicing selective vision by focusing on my vaseful of white carnations, my vintage indian hippie dress (JOY brand!) hung from the bread-drying pole, and the old door behind them instead of the rest of the mess. the fair trade carnation bunch was pathetic and battered as usual, but the flowers smell heavenly. i cut off the broken buds and stems and it's all good.
i still can't quite explain what it is about carnations that speaks to me. probably the same thing that black bush whiskey consists of, it just sits on my tongue so well. they don't stock it at my local alko, and plain old bushmill's, fine as it is, just doesn't carnate the same. (yes, i just made up that verb. it means what it means.)
