Hey jealousy.

I never thought I'd be the jealous type, but last night I shamefully acted like a five-year-old when my boyfriend wouldn't get off the computer.

I haven't been in very many relationships, so I'm definitely not an expert... but I've noticed lately I'm picking up that awful girly habit of thinking that he should always know exactly what I'm thinking at exactly every moment, and do the exact thing that will make me happy. I told myself I would never be this way, but there I was: huffing and puffing and throwing a fit like a big bad wolf-woman.

Okay, so I guess it wasn't as major as blowing a house down. But after trying to drop some hints to him over the span of a couple hours, and realizing I was failing in my attempt to distract him, I eventually got up from the couch and very loudly asked, "DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH LONGER YOU'LL BE?" When he said he wanted to do some more school work, I felt steam blow out of my ears. "FINE. I'M GOING TO GO UP TO BED. I TRIED."

And I huffed and I puffed all the way up the stairs.

Of course, the girl inside my head was thinking: Oh, this will show him. He'll see how upset I am and he'll chase after me, and everything will be fixed! TIP FOR THE GUYS OUT THERE: A girl always wants you to follow her when she storms away from you.

But of course my boyfriend, being dedicated to his academia, didn't chase after me. I don't blame him.

I didn't have any brothers growing up. The only males I had around were my guy friends, who all were like-minded in the opinion that they would NEVER turn down the attention from a girl if it was offered to them. Of course, this was the mindset of basically all males of the high school age (at least the ones that got together every Wednesday night to watch Star Trek... you guys know I love you), but I carried the belief with me all the way up to yesterday evening.

Dyke (yes, that is my boyfriend's name, get over it) explained to me that this is one of the many double standards that exists when it comes to how men behave. Sometimes there ARE other things more important than spending time with one's girlfriend, I guess.

It took a night's rest to come to my senses. I should be glad he proved my theory false, because if it was true, it would have meant that he just wasn't attracted to his girlfriend enough to get away from something less important.

So, dear wonderful boyfriend, I am going out of my way today to apologize to you in front of the entire world wide web, in hopes that you'll forgive my silly, childish, emotional antics. And I want to thank you for, even after my temper tantrum, cleaning the whole kitchen and dining room today while my jealous ass went to work.

I'm lucky to have him. Hopefully I don't get in another mood like last night's, but if I do, I'll just have to go to greater lengths to distract him. Little Red Riding Hood outfit, perhaps? ;)

Meryl Streep is a goddess.

I just saw Julie & Julia and thought it was excellent, all because of Meryl Streep. I have never seen one of her movies and not become completely absorbed in whatever character she is playing, because she always does it so well. There are so many more I need to see, including Sophie's Choice, which I hear is devastatingly sad but a must-see.

In honor of the film I just saw, I thought I'd give out a recipe for Spinach Artichoke Dip that is absolutely fantastic. Really, it's not cooking at all, just mixing stuff together in a bowl and then heating it up. But, hey, I make it really well. Here it is:

The Best Spinach Artichoke Dip, Ever!

Ingredients:

10 oz frozen chopped spinach (thawed)

6-8 oz shredded Parmesan cheese (1 bag)

6-8 oz shredded Monterey Jack cheese (1 bag)

1 onion, chopped

6 oz jar of marinated artichokes

1 package of cream cheese

Preheat the oven at 400 degrees. Mix the thawed spinach and the cream cheese in an oven-safe bowl. Once it is all mixed together and the lumps are out, add the onion. Drain the artichoke marinade in with the mixture, then chop the artichokes into small pieces. Add the artichokes and the cheeses. Mix it all together until smooth and then add salt, pepper, and garlic to taste.

If you want, leave some Monterey and Parmesan out of the mixture and place a small layer on top of the dip (if you want that cheese top coat). Put the bowl in the oven, and heat until the top layer is slightly bubbling. It's ready!

Let it cool for a small amount of time, and then eat with your favorite tortilla or pita chips.

*Alternatives: I have also heated the dip up in a crock pot, and this works just as well (but has no cheese top coat).

***

Well, there you go. I believe food is meant to be enjoyed, not kept in secret. Now you can be the person that is always told to "bring that really good spinach dip" to the party. I definitely am.

As Julia Child always said, "Bon appétit!"

Goodwill hunting.

I recently went to Goodwill and found some excellent things to put on my walls. I thought I'd share:

These were already in their frames, ready to go, 8 bucks each. I love travel-inspired decorations, and these two maps went perfectly on each side of my bookshelf.

I also found these two black sconces. I believe they were 99 cents each. I put them on either side of some old photographs of my grandparents, and it dressed the bathroom up rather nicely! Although... my slight OCD is showing that the left sconce is a bit higher than the right... so now I have to go fix that.

Moral of the story: Don't buy anything out of your Pottery Barn catalogue until you go to your local second-hand store.

The beauty of living alone.

I've never lived alone before. It has its advantages. Here is a list of things I can now do without a judging eye upon me:

• Walk around in super short shorts when it's hot and not feel like a floozy.
• Eat an enormous amount of chocolates and throw the wrappers directly on the floor (to be picked up later, of course).
• Use three separate bathrooms for the sole reason that I have three bathrooms and I can.
• Play Motown music really loud and dance with the dish washing brush.
• Fart. All the time.
• Say all my thoughts aloud rather than hold my tongue for politeness.
• Leave the same load of clean clothes in the dryer all week long (Sorry, past roomies, I guess I did that when I lived with you, too).
• Invest a ridiculous amount of time simply walking around my house and staring at at the pretty things I've hung on the walls.
• Blast This American Life episodes from my speakers while I clean.
• Cuss as much and as loud as I want when I stub my pinkie toe on the bathroom door.
• Nap for a long-ass time in the middle of the day and not feel like a drooling sloth on someone else's couch.
• Forget to take the trash out to the curb... two weeks in a row (I see illegal dumping in my future).
• Run and hide from the front door when a Mormon or a fat Boy Scout tries to sell me religious propaganda or popcorn.
• Open the refrigerator every half hour and just stare at it.
• Eat an entire yellow squash, uncut, while dipping it in ranch dressing and reading a book on the couch.
• Rub lotion all over my legs and body in any room in the house and quote Silence of the Lambs while I do it (i.e. "It rubs the lotion on its skin... or else it gets the hose again!!!").
• Sing. All the time.
• Stay up way past my bedtime writing silly things like this.

P.S. I do have to add that I do all of this in front of my boyfriend when he's over, so he's the exception. He puts up with it. I've trained him well.

Food for thought.

Tonight I made a pretty dinner plate of pan seared salmon, sweet peas, and a baked potato. I sat down at the dining room table and ate in silence. I didn't use the computer, I didn't read a book, I didn't listen to music. I just sat... and enjoyed the food I was eating.

I agree with the people out there that are saying we've lost our connection with food. The closest I've been involved with my meals is when I helped out in the little garden my family had at my childhood home. There was something very rewarding about being a part of the cultivation process. It was exciting to know that the tomatoes and corn I was eating came right out of my own backyard. These days I'm lucky to keep a bouquet of flowers alive. One goal of mine this year: attempt to grow a little garden.

We also don't sit down and eat together as much as we used to. When I was little, I remember a pretty consistent pattern of dinner at the dinner table, discussing our days, etc. Now, my family is so busy and everyone has such separate lives that our meals are often buffet style. There are also so many distractions around us (television, computer, newspaper, video games, etc.) that I'll realize on some days I visit the house that everyone has come into the kitchen, filled his or her plate, and gone into a separate area of the house to complete an individual task during the meal. I am as responsible for the shift as the rest of my family. But, I think it would be nice if we tried to get back to the basics on family dinner nights.

It is also nice to sit in solitude and eat. When is the last time you ate a meal without anything else to distract you? It's a good question to ask oneself. We've become so accustomed to immediate entertainment and instant gratification that it feels almost unnatural to pause and take a moment to enjoy the simplicity of the present. Another goal of mine this year: more meals eaten alone in silence.

Tonight I looked at the packaging for the salmon and discovered that it came all the way from Norway. I feel guilty. The main reason I'm slowly phasing into the complete vegetarian lifestyle is because of the amount of energy it takes to collect, process, and ship meat products to our local grocery stores. While I haven't given up seafood just yet, the fact that I'm in a land-locked state means access to fish has its limits and I'll often be stuck buying something from far away. Another goal: be aware of the origins of what I eat.

I've also gone vegetarian for, I guess you could say, the animal rights issue. I'm not going to deny that I love the taste of meat. For my entire life until this past summer I was one of those people that said, "I really just don't think I could ever be a vegetarian. Meat just tastes too delicious!" I'm not really sure what made the shift happen, but it just clicked one day in my head that I really did want to do this. I could never kill a cow, a pig, or a chicken myself, and the way animal production has turned into a factory-like system is something I don't really want to be a part of either.

I'll get off my pedestal now. There is no way that I'm going to go around judging peoples' individual eating habits--I just thought I'd share my own thought process on the topic.

If you are interested, however, in looking more into the idea of local food, animal rights or the food industry today, below are some links that I've found very interesting.

Local Indianapolis Food: Farm Fresh Delivery

Food, Inc. -

(for more info click here)

30 Days - "Animal Rights" -

(for more info click here)

Fast Food Nation author, Eric Schlosser -

Something about something.

I've titled this blog "Morgendorf" in honor of my favorite adolescent cartoon, Daria. The main character, Daria Morgendorffer, was the epitome of teen-angsty sarcasm in the 90's. I idolized her because she was my complete opposite: she said what she thought without any hesitation over the repercussions. As an insecure, people-pleasing thirteen-year-old, I found Daria to be someone through whom I could live vicariously.

She's helped me a bit. I'm less of a pushover these days, but I'm still not where I want to be when it comes to speaking my mind, standing up for myself, and realizing that it is impossible to make everyone happy at the same time. This blog will cover the process of developing my inner-Daria, as well as humorous musings I observe about the world around me (as she is known for doing, as well).

I happened to stumble across an episode of Daria titled "Write Where it Hurts," and I found it very fitting with the birth of this blog. In it, Daria is given a writing assignment that she struggles to complete. There is a bit of dialogue she has with her friend, Jane, that sums up what I want to achieve with this little space on the internet:

Jane: Well, what's your definition of true?

Daria: Something that says something.

Jane: What, anything?

Daria: No, something, about something.

Jane: Let me get this straight, you're telling me that you want to write something, not just anything, that says something about something.

Daria: Right.

Jane: Gee, who'd ever believe you having trouble communicating.

- Episode: "Write Where it Hurts" (1998)

I want to write something about something that means something. Make sense?

If you have never watched Daria, or if you are interested in seeing an episode, "Write Where it Hurts" is available online in three different clips. I think it'd be a great episode to show a class of struggling writers, as well, so check it out if you're a teacher.

I'll leave you, and this first entry, with the gift of YouTube (Why isn't this show out on DVD?!).

"Write Where it Hurts" Part 1:

"Write Where it Hurts" Part 2:

"Write Where it Hurts" Part 3: