Dreams, Progress, and Acorn Squash

I'm quickly realizing that my two projects involving sleep are not going to be friends.... waking up at 630am every work day and also waking myself up every 90 minutes to jot down dreams as part of my lucid dreaming work. I've worked up a little plan for myself, and I'll try to share the dreams I remember as I go on.

-Every night, I'll set my alarm for 9 hours after I go to bed.

-I'll wake up every 90 minutes and jot down anything I can remember.

The biggest problem here is that waking up at 630 and allowing 9 hours for sleep makes for a 930 bedtime. This is, to me, pretty gross. It's 1030 already, and I am still not ready for bed. Notice my rules above did not include this 630 wake-up time. I will, to the best of my abilities, give myself 9 hours, with an absolute 8am alarm. I think this is doable. We'll see how it goes. My sleep projects have never stuck before! But my efforts are evolving with their doability. I'll call it progress.

This brings me to Acorn Squash. I tried cooking my first artichoke yesterday. I chopped the top, boiled it for a while, and mixed up some olive oil with garlic, salt, and pepper... Tara and I dipped each leaf in the mixture, and by the end of it we both felt absolutely sick. All that oil... It makes me shudder just thinking about it.

However! Every failure needing an equally massive success to follow, I'm going to take this acorn squash that I bought not too long ago, and do this with it:

	Moroccan-Style Stuffed Acorn Squash
	SUBMITTED BY: TRUCKERDOO
	“Vegetables, garbanzos, raisins and couscous in a lovely Moroccan broth taste delicious inside butter and brown sugar-brushed acorn squash. You can experiment with different vegetables, or add diced chicken. Feel free to be creative with your amounts - I usually freestyle and end up with leftover stuffing mixture, which tastes great on its own the next day. For vegetarians, substitute vegetable broth for thechicken broth.”

My take on cooking involves spending very little time planning, which makes this great because I looked it up in two minutes, and only have to buy raisins and couscous, and maybe I'll add in some tofu cooked in some really hot chicken broth for good measure. I am excited, because I've never cooked a REAL squash before. And until then... More plantain! EEEEEEEEE!!!

Who says snacks have to make sense?

Today was the first day I actually felt on top of things again after starting my 630 wake-up time. And when I tackle a work day by 430 and go home to start the weekend, that's cause for celebration. So first thing after finding my first issue of Rolling Stone in the mail, I opened up the fridge and grabbed... well, you can see it above. That is celery sticks with blue cheese vinaigrette, scotch, and a banana. And let me tell you, it was delicious.

A Change of Paradigms

Today was day 3 of my paradigm shift. It's a little experiment I'm doing... let me explain:

I generally work ten-hour days at my job. I also generally wake up without an alarm, usually around 900 or 1000. If I manage to keep myself honest during the week it almost guarantees me one of the holiest of things: a three day weekend. And this is something that I can do; well... as long as I don't have plans with anyone during the week. At all.

In short, I want the best of everything. I want to do things after work, and I want my 3 day weekend. Now, as much as I love sleeping 'til whenever, it's the only thing in the equation that can slip. As a result, I'm putting myself on a strict 630 alarm. No snoozing. Those who know me will tell you this is not a small matter. I love my sleep.

Back to now. I'm three days in and not having a fun time. Day one was doable. Day two I was tired-ish, but not too bad. Day three, well... This morning I used my greatest strength to roll out of bed. Dazed, I wandered around, put myself through a few pull-ups (they were way harder than usual), then paced like a caged tiger around my bed. Sleep was like a delicious, juicy steak, and me... I was hungry. I beat it, by way of another miracle of willpower, but today was awful. I was tired, brain was dead, stomach was achy, muscles sore, head... pressured.

The day was... a struggle. This, of course, had to happen, before I would wise up and start going to bed earlier. So tonight, I come straight home from work, heat up some leftover chicken, onion and bell peppers in peanut sauce, fried up my very first plantain. Now I'm having a little tequila sunrise and watching The Uninvited. When the move is over, it's time for me to force myself into a little bedtime, before 10pm possibly?

Man, do I feel old right now...

For So Many Reasons

So, let's answer some questions here. Everything needs a purpose, so why the blog? Well, this year, just like last, April came around and I realized a third of the year has come and gone; and just like last April, I've begun to wonder if I've done enough with my time. Have I made the most of it?

And just like last year, the answer is inevitably no -- but I've done pretty well this year! At least, as well as I could expect to living in The District for a good third of the year up to now. I bought my first place, fighting a ridiculous battle to get a fraudulent collection pulled off my credit record, and moved in the day I bought it. This was also the day I returned from D.C., and I moved in by way of zero effort on my own part thanks to my oh-so-kickass girlfriend, friends and family. Read: Jim get on plane; Jim get picked up at airport; Jim get driven to new place; all Jim's stuff is already there! It was, by far, the greatest moving experience of my life. But I digress...

I'm writing this blog to chronicle my craziness. In the future I will be posting about a number of things, but posts will probably come about in one of several categories:

- Food, either eaten or created.

- Beer and other alcohol I've drank, brewed, or distilled.

- Hobbies I've tried out, picked up, or dropped (and there will likely be many...)

- Thoughts and notes.

So for now I'll finish watching Ed Wood -- because I haven't seen nearly enough of Johnny Depp in women's clothing... not today.