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urocyonI made this lemon rice, only substituting some extra cilantro for the curry leaves I didn't have and throwing in sunflower seeds instead of urad dal (didn't saute them with the spices because they were roasted), to go with some tilapia for supper. It was delicious. Oh yes, and it worked well with half the oil.
Even more so than usual, this item is of far more interest to myself than to anyone else, but I'm posting anyway, if only to show that I'm not always pettish. :) A bit, er, unpredictable perhaps; still, this is hardly usual behavior for me either.
Well, those of you who know me will be aware that I had a rough couple of months and am still working on getting out more after a rather nasty breakup; I'd even gotten out of touch with a few friends. (Also working against periodically quite troublesome social anxiety, but that is another story.) For those who don't know me, it's an innocuous bit of background, so that I sound perhaps a little less silly. As if it matters. :)
At any rate, I surprised myself a bit tonight, and am supposed to be going out tommorrow evening! (Well, this evening by now, but since I haven't gone to bed, it's still tomorrow.) I've been trying to talk more to people online lately, even when I'm feeling some urges to stay in; sometimes I can withdraw too much, and I really don't want that. Well, tonight I ran into someone in my city, which has happened before. This one, though, was a MOTAS, about the right age (actually, a younger man of 25 *g*), with a number of things in common, and who seemed interested in getting together after we'd talked for a while. Now, I am still a bit leary of meeting people online, because of the potential for misrepresentation--I may have met the beforementioned ex through a Usenet/IRC community, but he was a longterm member of a group with plenty of people who had met him face-to-face and could have screamed, "Run!", had it been justified. So I did politely ask to see a photo of this guy when he didn't offer one right away (in this case, even better, his webcam, and he was nice-looking on top of it), and gave him a short call on my prepaid mobile (no caller ID possible for him, his was an appropriate number, and he was polite and did sound reasonable and probably Macedonian--all checked out). No alarm bells have rung so far, and I tend toward hypervigilance, which is probably a good thing in such situations.
This may sound like I grilled the poor guy, but one of the ways I surprised myself was by carrying off the conversation so smoothly, I thought. Even after it shifted into "Ye gods, I think he's about to ask me out!"--who, especially what somewhat shy person, doesn't have that inner 14-year-old voice popping up in these situations? *g*--I managed to keep on a pretty even keel. I think I pulled off the telephone conversation with some aplomb, and on my worse days I despise speaking on the phone; it can give me palpitations--really. One reason I'm feeling good about things is that I did ride through/ignore the anxiety that was there better than I've generally been able to recently.
I also pleasantly surprised myself a bit by not taking very long to tell myself, "OK, no big warning signals--why the hell not? You need to get out and have some fun." I would have been a little more comfortable waiting for next weekend--time to get my hair trimmed, too!--but I agreed to meet him (in a public place, of course) tomorrow evening. I suppose tomorrow's as good a time for dinner as any. Though that did seem a little overeager, I'm excited. (Had I noticed any other alarms, it might have put me off; as it is, I'm putting it in the innocently-eager category for now.) I'm not forming too many expectations--could just not like each other in person, or it could fall into the recent minor rash of no-callbacks (trite or not, one really does tend to forget how irksome it can be out there)--just hoping for a pleasant evening out.
Oh dear, I really should go to sleep, or I'm going to be a wreck later. Wish me luck!
Even more so than usual, this item is of far more interest to myself than to anyone else, but I'm posting anyway, if only to show that I'm not always pettish. :) A bit, er, unpredictable perhaps; still, this is hardly usual behavior for me either.
Well, those of you who know me will be aware that I had a rough couple of months and am still working on getting out more after a rather nasty breakup; I'd even gotten out of touch with a few friends. (Also working against periodically quite troublesome social anxiety, but that is another story.) For those who don't know me, it's an innocuous bit of background, so that I sound perhaps a little less silly. As if it matters. :)
At any rate, I surprised myself a bit tonight, and am supposed to be going out tommorrow evening! (Well, this evening by now, but since I haven't gone to bed, it's still tomorrow.) I've been trying to talk more to people online lately, even when I'm feeling some urges to stay in; sometimes I can withdraw too much, and I really don't want that. Well, tonight I ran into someone in my city, which has happened before. This one, though, was a MOTAS, about the right age (actually, a younger man of 25 *g*), with a number of things in common, and who seemed interested in getting together after we'd talked for a while. Now, I am still a bit leary of meeting people online, because of the potential for misrepresentation--I may have met the beforementioned ex through a Usenet/IRC community, but he was a longterm member of a group with plenty of people who had met him face-to-face and could have screamed, "Run!", had it been justified. So I did politely ask to see a photo of this guy when he didn't offer one right away (in this case, even better, his webcam, and he was nice-looking on top of it), and gave him a short call on my prepaid mobile (no caller ID possible for him, his was an appropriate number, and he was polite and did sound reasonable and probably Macedonian--all checked out). No alarm bells have rung so far, and I tend toward hypervigilance, which is probably a good thing in such situations.
This may sound like I grilled the poor guy, but one of the ways I surprised myself was by carrying off the conversation so smoothly, I thought. Even after it shifted into "Ye gods, I think he's about to ask me out!"--who, especially what somewhat shy person, doesn't have that inner 14-year-old voice popping up in these situations? *g*--I managed to keep on a pretty even keel. I think I pulled off the telephone conversation with some aplomb, and on my worse days I despise speaking on the phone; it can give me palpitations--really. One reason I'm feeling good about things is that I did ride through/ignore the anxiety that was there better than I've generally been able to recently.
I also pleasantly surprised myself a bit by not taking very long to tell myself, "OK, no big warning signals--why the hell not? You need to get out and have some fun." I would have been a little more comfortable waiting for next weekend--time to get my hair trimmed, too!--but I agreed to meet him (in a public place, of course) tomorrow evening. I suppose tomorrow's as good a time for dinner as any. Though that did seem a little overeager, I'm excited. (Had I noticed any other alarms, it might have put me off; as it is, I'm putting it in the innocently-eager category for now.) I'm not forming too many expectations--could just not like each other in person, or it could fall into the recent minor rash of no-callbacks (trite or not, one really does tend to forget how irksome it can be out there)--just hoping for a pleasant evening out.
Oh dear, I really should go to sleep, or I'm going to be a wreck later. Wish me luck!
