#93 Read the Bible.

Yes, I actually read the entire Bible. The whole thing. Page 1 to 500. In order.

The feeling I was most left with was that clearly, no one has ever read this thing before. Not a chance. If anyone had, then when anyone cited passages, particularly from the Old Testament, anyone wishing to refute it would have some pretty easy counter passages to read. It's full of all kinds of things, especially violence. I couldn't believe how much violence. And judgement. So much judgement. And I still don't know if God and/or Jesus want us to judge people or not. I mean, I thought Jesus said not to, but then, we're not supposed to associate with sinful people, and who am I to decide who's sinful? I don't know.

Anyways, I am not attempting to start a big religious argument. Do I believe The Bible is the Word of God? No. (Strike me down.) I do believe that these stories probably have some basis in the history of life, but they were passed down word of mouth generation to generation, so I don't understand how people can believe it literally. I just don't. Do I believe some of the stories have lessons with merit? Sure. So does Vonnegut. Some stories and some people are just so wonderful for teaching lessons. It doesn't matter if they're historically accurate or not. Because as long as a story is going through a person, there are going to be some flaws, because people have their own lenses. Do I think I'm 100% right? How could I be? I think anyone who thinks he or she is definitely right is completely arrogant. Who are you to know all the secrets of the universe?

Just today, Clint Ruch posted a really wonderful NPR "This I Believe" piece by Penn Jillette that really represents my own religions beliefs pretty well. Feel free to read it if you want. Just know that I'm not trying to start an argument. I just think life is really beautiful and swell despite the bad things that happen. It makes me want to be a better person even more because of it. Thanks, Penn. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5015557

Just for good measure, so everyone believes I actually read this, here are some of my favorite obscure passages:

Genesis 6:11: "The earth aslo was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence."
Exodus 1:12: "So he looked this way and that way, and when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand."
Leviticus 5:17: "If a person sins, and comits any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord, though he does not know it, yet he is guilty and shall bear his iniquity."
Numbers 35:6: "Now among the cities which you will give to the Levites you shall appoint six cities of refuge, to which a man-slayer may flee. And to tehse you shall add forty-two cities."
Deuteronomy 10:16: "Therefore circumcize the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer."
2 Samuel 22:26-28: "With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful; / With a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless; / With the pure You will show Yourself pure; / With the devious You will show Yourself shrewd. / You will save the humble people; / But Your eyes are on the haughty that You may bring them down."
2 Kings 6:28-29: "Then the king said to her, 'What is troubling you?' And she answered, 'This woman said to me, 'Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.' / 'So we boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, 'Give your son, that we may eat him': but she has hidden her son."
Job 10:9: "Remember, I pray, that You have made me like clay."
Psalm 45: "My heart is overflowing with a good theme; / I receite my composition concerning the King; / My tongue is the mpen of a ready writer."
Proverbs 1:22: "How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? / For scorners delight in their scorning. / And fools hate knowledge."
Ecclesiastes 1:5: "The sun also rides, and the sun goes down, / And hastens to the place where it arose."
Matthew 5:44: "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you."
Luke 12:34: "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

There were a lot more, but I'm tired of typing. My message with this post is love and be curious!

#1 Eat a fish I caught.

I got the idea for this one from reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I highly recommend it. It is definitely not the preachy, be-a-vegetarian book I heard it was. Michael Pollan's not a vegetarian. He's not telling anyone to be one. He explored what food is and where it comes from. He decided to first have a McDonald's meal and then see if he could figure out where all the pieces of it came from and second to make his own meal, fully from things he himself hunted, gathered, and cooked.

The book made me think a lot about what I eat, how messed up the food industry is and how detached we are from our food.

Don't worry. I'm not going to get all preachy on you either.

This item made the list because I decided that I should be more attached to my food and realize what I'm eating. I decided that if I could catch a fish, clean it, and eat it, I

could keep eating meat for now. Could I kill some big mammal? Probably not. I mean, I have a hard time killing bugs. Bugs. Even ants. And it hurts me a little when people kill spiders. (I got that

weird hang up from Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer, which felt a lot like Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged to me: really thought-provoking message but just not good literature. Though, at least Kingsolver's story and characters were believeable, so it feels like the message stuck with me a little better. If you're offended, I'll argue with you about Rand some other time. Be ready though. I have an arsenal.) I probably couldn't kill a chicken either. Probably.

But I did it. I caught the fish - accompanied by Dave Merrill, Edmund Cruz, Edric Cruz, Nader Elmasri, and Norris Narsa. It kinda drowned on its own, so I didn't have to whack it or anything, which Alicia had made mention of the day before and I freaked out. I would have a really hard time actually actively killing. Even though I know it's the same thing letting it passively die. So the fish died. You can see in an earlier post how I cut of its head, slit it's belly, and pulled out its insides.

The plan was to then build a fire, cook the fish, and it eat that night, but a huge storm rolled in and killed that plan. So Dave Merrill froze the fish for a later date.

This past weekend, Angela Mioglionico and Danielle Reyes joined me at Dave Merill's. Dave built a fire. Danielle named the fish Gary. And we cooked him up. He was a little rubbery and tasteless, but he was fine.

I only wish I could have done it all in one day so he'd really feel like a real fish I was eating. One that was squirming in my hand just a few hours before. But it worked.

Next time I want an ocean fish!

#74 Have a conversation in French for at least 10 minutes.

This may have been a little half-assed. I was out with Edmund Cruz and Angela Mioglionico. We were on our 3rd bar of a Monday night and a few more drinks than that. Angela & I both speak broken French. So we had a broken French conversation. We did not resort to English though. We even turned potato skins into bateaus pomme de terres (potato boats). I guess we did use English for "mild, medium," et "suicide" when discussing going to Buff Joe's the next day.

(No, this is not a picture from that night, but we didn't take any, and I hate the posts I've done without pictures.)

Update: I had another one on Thursday 12/15/11 with Rebeca Matus :)

#13 Cook over an open fire.

I may have done this when I was younger, but I don't remember it.

I guess having a little fire pit feels a bit like cheating, but I'm going to count it because we cooked both Gary and brats over the fire and at them both.

Who's Gary? That's what Danielle Reyes named my fish, of course. Remember? The fresh water drum I caught in May? He was busy freezing at Dave's house, just waiting for this moment.

Dave Merrill built the fire. (I didn't, so Ev & Brian, that one's still up for grabs.) He also defrosted Gary and wrapped him up in some seasons for the fire. He had also run out to get us some brats.

Here we are cooking Gary and the brats. More in the next post about eating a fish I caught. (I was angry Angela Mioglionico kept forgetting to be on photo duty.)

Fail

We were supposed to go to Wiener Circle after the Smigs, Smegs, and Deviled Eggs party. But... we didn't. Credit for the effort, friends who were still there around midnight. Big credit to Angela who actually got me out of the house after everyone else had left but then took me back and had pizza delivered to my mouth.

#61 Make deviled eggs.

Yeah, yeah, I know they're not difficult to make. The thing is, I love them, and I've never made them. So I figured I should just try it, realize how easy they are, and then make them whenever I want and stop maxing on them every time they're around.

(Sidenote: every time I ask for one of my mom's recipes that I love, it ends up being one of these: something that's crazy easy to make and if it takes any time at all, it's just marinating, not the actual preparation. Examples include stuffed mushrooms and marinated chicken kabobs. So delicious.)

Angela Mioglionico decided to make an event of it, even though Angela didn't actually want me to invite Nader Elmasri or Edmund Cruz, as they were my #1 and #2 leaders at the time.

So we threw the Smigs, Smegs, and Devilled Eggs Party.

I felt a little rushed making the tasty treats as I had to work much later than anticipated.

The most difficult part was hard boiling the eggs. I can cook. I swear I can. But I cannot hard boil an egg to save my life. I just can't remember to take them off the heat. I screw it up every time.

However, this time: Success! Thanks for supervising me, Ang!

Then I mixed in the ingredients, including the juice from the amazing McClure's pickles. (If you live in or visit Michigan, buy them. Yes, they're pricier than other pickles. They're worth it. Spectacular. Thank you, Ted Allen, and "Best Thing I Ever Ate." Also buy the Blood Mary Mix. But mix it with half tomato juice, half McClure's Blood Mary Mix, because man, is that mix every pickley.)

Ed, Nader, Chris Zann, Chris Niblock, and Mark Matishak all got a piece of the eggs. Ahmed Atia, Norris Narsa, Danielle Reyes, and her friend Santana would have, but we only had 6 eggs (12 halves). See, Angela hates deviled eggs. And she was in charge of the shopping. And convinced me 6 was enough. Because no one wants to max on deviled eggs before drinking. Yes, I could have gone to the store to get more. I didn't. I was swayed. Ahmed, Norris, and Danielle, I promise to make them and bring them to work one day so you can be official.

#24 Go to "The Moth."

"The Moth" is a storytelling program that is done all across the country and broadcase on NPR. Random people just get up on stage and tell a short story. It's awesome. I'd listened to it on NPR and then found out that they do Moth sessions in Chicago the last Tuesday of every month. In fact, the Chicago location is about a block and a half from my apartment. And it still took me 2.5 years to actually go.

The motivational Angela Mioglionico got my butt moving the quarter mile walk on a hot night. The way I gather it works is that you submit your name prior to the event and they then draw 10 random names to actually tell their stories on stage. Then, after each reader, an MC does some funny gabbing while 3 groups of judges calculate scores based on some set of criteria the Moth organizers give them. There is also an audience-participation piece. The organizers leave out little slips of paper with half a sentence, and the audience is encouraged to complete the sentence. The organizers then pick some good ones to have the MC read out loud to the crowd while the judges are tallying scores.

The July theme was fireworks, and the audience-participation sentence was "I knew there were going to be sparks when..."

There were some really great stories. And some really bizarre stories. The hipster hippie liberals were offended by some parts of some of the stories. I enjoyed that. Particularly the army guy who mentioned he shot and killed a guy as part of his story of how fireworks happen in Iraq right now. They were all appalled. I was like, really, hipsters? He was in a war. That's what happens in wars. Sure, you'll go protest it but you can't actually listen to veterans stories? really? I also enjoyed the story by a girl who talked about how she had been struggling with self harm and how common it is. People were freaking out a little. But it was her story. And she was brave to get up and tell it.

Some of the stories were hilarious and/or really well performed. One of my favorites was about this guy's first love, and how on their first date they were in a graveyard and saw fireflies, and she said, "Fireflies are real? I thought they were mythical." And he said, that probably should have been a sign. And another guy talking about making out with his dream girl, who ended up just being a bit of a slut, but then in the end they became the best of friends. The best part was when he was explaining the making out and how we all know what it feels like to have so much build up (their year-and-a-half long pre-romance) and then to have it be totally disappointing... and how this make-out session was NOTHING like that. It was f'ing amazing! Ha. He was great.

So I'm pretty mad at myself for not walking a block and a half and paying $8 for a very thoroughly entertaining night once a month at Martyrs, but I'm so glad Ang made me realize it! Really great night. I can't wait for next month: food. And next year, I'm totally submitting a story to read! (I'll read it too. My fear is letting people read my writing, not public speaking.)

#44 Make pasta.

My biggest regret right now is that neither Angela nor I attempted to look nice for any of these activities. Ha.

Why was I under the impression that making pasta was so difficult? I mean, I guess it's difficult to accumulate all of the pasta-making equipment, but other than that, whatevs.

Angela Mioglionico and I made gnocchi. I cooked the potatoes. (Something I already knew how to do. Hooray!) We both shredded the potatoes. I mixed together the egg, flour, and potato. I put my fingers into the gooey mess and mixed it up. I formed the rolls and cut them to pieces.

Angela and I both put the marks on them. Angela boiled them. Angela put them in a dish, added vodka sauce and cheese. We both ate them.

Granted, there was a bit of chunkiness to them, but it was just potato chunkiness. If I would have had a food processor or even a masher, they would have been less chunky. They were sure tasty though! And the whole process only took like 15 minutes!

#5 Take a ballet class

I've been a little bit obsessed with ballet lately. I think Kanye West actually did it. If you'd like to see how he made it happen, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg5wkZ-dJXA. He also did some lovely performances on Saturday Night Live: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdcnXWe1GUw. Lovely.

From that, doing ballet moves at the bar became my new thing. (I realized it was getting to be a problem when my brother and I went to Dan's Tavern on Christmas Eve Eve and a friend of mine from high school I hadn't seen in 14 years commented on a photo I had posted of Dan's that said something like, "I just saw some ballet moves by the juke box. Nice!")

Next, I got very excited about Black Swan and loved every minute of it... though I wish someone had mentioned the intense sex scene before I went to the movie with a girl I was rumored to be dating. Not that we wouldn't have gone. I just wish I had been prepared for the hotness of it. Yikes.

I was even more excited to take a ballet class after going to the Joffrey Ballet. I love ballet! Who knew?!

I wasn't sure I would like ballet class because I'm not a big fan of group exercise classes in general. I want to play spots or do totally solo activities, like running or biking. I don't even like to run with others. The only group ex I can do regularly is plyometics, and even then I like small groups of people I like and will push me because I don't want to be the wussiest one.

I'm also very inflexible and not really known for my grace, so I was nervous about that part.

Angela Mioglionico, my very focused friend, loves ballet and classes. She looked us up a lovely studio (Intrigue in the South Loop) and class types and times and everything. We chose Beginner Ballet instead of Novice, as I was familiar with the words. Or so I thought.

I didn't quite know all the words, and I was nervous when the cute, little instructor said to give that night a try but novice was the real beginner class.

However, I loved it. Loved it. It was such a good workout. In a yoga kind of way. Just full of great exercises that are challenging but semi-slow and just great for thost core and little-balance muscles in the arms and legs. I would 100% recommend it to anyone who is training for any sport or race, just like I'd recommend yoga. I liked ballet a little more than yoga, but I can't quite put my finger on it now.

The bar work was my favorite. The leaps across the room made me feel like an elephant. And I'm awesome at turning (pirouetting) on my right leg but not my left. I couldn't figure out why until it hit me that I used to skate, and I did turns on my right leg all the time when I was little, just on skates.

The instructor even said I did great for someone who'd never taken the class before (playa, please), and said if I just took one novice class to learn all the vocab, I could jump into beginner easily. And if I didn't want to so easy, I could really just do beginner.

I definitely plan to go back. Loved it.

#12 Make a killer martini

Two years ago, Limpy posted a link on CT's wall: http://dxjo.net/fun/?p=843. That isn't quite it, but close enough. It lists the 40 things every drunk should do. Naturally, I forwarded it to Tyler. We traded lists of which ones we had done and agreed to tell those stories over drinks, which never actually happened. (He expanded that to which ones he wanted to do and wasn't sure he had done or not.) (No, I won't tell you which ones I've done and which ones I haven't.)

The only one that seemed like something I'd actually like to do and be proud to say I have done is #13 Make Your Best Friend a Perfect Martini. If by "My Best Friend," I meant "myself and at least one other person."

I'm giving Ahmed Atia half a point for looking up a martini recipe and messaging it to me.

The rest of the credit goes to Angela Mioglionico for volunteering to be my taste tester even looking up several recipes as she isn't so into olives.

I visited my favorite liquor store, which does not allow cell phones as "they are vexing and insolent" to pick up some vodka, dry vermouth, olives, and some kind of cocoa vodka stuff.

At home, we did not clean up nor dress up, but I did chill the glasses. I mixed a dirty martini for myself and a chocolate martini for Angela. Delightful. I then had a chocolate myself as it was way more delicious than I anticipated.

We then had had enough martini to experiement a little. I made a pineapple martini with some pineapple juice I had talked myself into needing from Trader Joe's the day before. Angela tried a pickle martini. You know, a Bloody Mary without the icky tomato juice. (I love tomato juice. Love Bloody Maries. Angela, not so much.) That was not as much of a successul but it was surprisingly not terrible. It actually has potential. It was just a little much.

Side note: if you like pickles, try using pickle juice as a chaser, particularly with whiskey shots. AMAZING.