Chicago's Best Ribs

My favorite gift this Christmas was a slow-cooker. I was eager to break the seal on it so today I took it on its maiden voyage: pork ribs in a raspberry Chipotle sauce.

Honestly, these are the best ribs I've ever eaten in my life. My roommate Christine gave this glowing review: "I mean, I think you're a good cook and everything, but this shit is gourmet."

She gave me further RIBSPECT with her suggestion for the City of Chicago pay me to set up a booth in Millennium Park next summer.

I'd like to take full credit for it, but I just followed a recipe. Essentially you blend a can of chipotle peppers in adodo sauce with an entire 18 oz jar of raspberry jam. It took me 10-15 minutes to prepare and then cooked on high for 4.5 hours.

My only tip is to baste the meat every half an hour with the juice/sauce it's simmering in. I kept it moist throughout and it turned out incredibly juicy.

The recipe is available here.

D-O-R-O-T-H-Y

DOROTHY MICHAELS

Ron? I have a name. It's Dorothy. It's not Tootsie or Toots or Sweetie or Honey or Doll. 

RON

Oh, Christ. 

DOROTHY MICHAELS

No. Just Dorothy. Alan's always Alan, Tom's always Tom, and John's always John. I have a name, too. It's Dorothy. Capital D-o-r-o-t-h-y. 

Grad School

I've been behind on blog posts because just before Thanksgiving break I decided to apply to grad school. Since then, it has been a whirlwind of procrastination, list-making, note taking, and even **working** on the application requirements. 

The plan: to earn an MFA in screenwriting and playwriting from Northwestern University.

I've been working on a screenplay behind closed doors for over a year. As I was approaching the year mark, I took a step back to look at what I accomplished. It wasn't impressive. Like I'm about three hours of work ahead of where I was a year ago. When I realized this, I felt like sticking my head in a lion's cage at feeding time.

This realization catapulted me toward the decision to apply to grad school. I have all these dreams of the things I could create, but between working full time, writing sketch, acting, improvising, and being a normal person who makes her own dinner, there's no time to practice a craft, let alone master it.

So I've decided to go all in. If I am accepted to grad school, I will quit my full-time job, take out some loans, and kick grad school's ass. 

I don't have the money to do this but I'm not going to let that stop me. My current loans will be differed and if all works out, I'll have a better paying job on the other end. And if I don't, I'll deal with that. But I'm not going to let not having enough money prevent me from following my dream.

My concern is that if I don't take this time to invest in myself, I'm never going to get to where I want to be. And I couldn't live that way. I'd rather be eating Ramen noodles every day (not by choice) and being happy than slaving away on the upkeep at Millionaire Mountain.

I've enjoyed writing the essays. I compared the role of gender in Battlestar Galactica (1977) and Battlestar Galactica (2004). I pitched a sweet idea for a comedy about air guitar competitions. I read the screenplays to the Hurt Locker and Little Miss Sunshine. And I actually wrote 10 pages of the screenplay I've hardly batted an eye at over the course of 2012. I've done more in three weeks than an entire year and I feel more energized and confident than ever.

Even if I am not accepted, I won't leave empty handed; the process has taught me a lot about myself. I have clarified my values. I have found I exhibit grace under pressure, and I saw how much good work I'm capable of producing, even on a time-budget. And I know I believe in myself enough to take a financial risk.

Being accepted would be a tremendous blessing because it would be the gift of time (and other people's awesome knowledge) but either way, I'll ride this wave and focus on making something I'm really proud of.

Overheard: Shots

"I need a shot. I wanna get blackout drunk!" - Bro, at Of Monsters of Men concert. 

"So I Love this Weather but OMG... is our Planet Dying?!?"

(Start rant.)

Do you really think four warm days in early December are "evidence" of global warming?  Remember last week when it was 30 degrees and your flappy mouth was vomiting up complaints about how fucking cold it was?  Do you realize that we are still 17 days away from the start of fucking winter? Can your dum-dum brain understand that in parts of Russia, it's -60F and their snowmen's balls have turtled back up into their bodies?  Can your pee-pee filled mind comprehend that it's supposed to snow in Chicago next week?

Enjoy the nice fucking weather and stop killing my good-weather-buzz with your downer comment that a handful of nice days come at the price of our planet slowly burning to a crisp.

And if we are strangling the air out of Earth's throat, can you shut your idiot mouth so I can expire in peace?

(End rant.)

Timeless Themes

SUSIE and the OTHER TRAVEL WRITERS are working at their computers. Most have on headphone. LISA enters.

LISA

I got a book in the mail. I'm really excited.

SUSIE

Oh yeah? What's the book?

LISA

It's a book of erotic photography.

SUSIE

Cool. Does it have a theme?

LISA

I don't know...boobs? 


Fin.

When You Want to Look But Can't Take Your Eyes Off the Road

We drove back from Columbus this morning. Along the way, I witnessed one of the dumbest and most endearing moments in family history. 

Dad is driving and mom is in the passenger seat, browsing Facebook on her iPhone. She sees the above picture and laughs. She hands me her phone and from the backseat, I look and laugh and hand the phone back. She wants to share it with my dad, but doesn't want him to take his eyes off the road. So she describes the photo series frame by frame. 

Imagine you're my dad: you're a 57-year old computer programer driving through central Indiana on an overcast day and you could really give a shit about viral internet photos.

"So at the top of the photo it says 'How to catch a cat.' Step one: bring a box.' Then it says 'Step 2: Wait.' So there's a box that's on the floor and there's a white cat inside it. There's also a marmalade cat on top of the box. And the white cat inside is really filling up the box because the box is small. Next scene is marmalade cat inside the box with the white cat. Then the third picture has the two cats in the box and another cat on top of it, waiting to get in. Then in the final scene, the cat that was on top of the box in now crammed into the box with the other two cats. They're all really squished in there. The third cat can't even turn around because its so full of cats and you just see his black tail hanging out. And there's a fourth cat sitting on top of the box."