A Recipe for Balsamic Chicken, and my Pre-Bed Thoughts.

Season four chicken-breasts with salt and pepper, then lightly dredge them in flour. Pat off any excess flour with a paper-towel. Heat two tablespoons of Olive Oil in a skillet, add one tablespoon of butter, and stir until it melts. Place the chicken-breasts in, and saute them for about seven minutes, flipping them once. Each side should be lightly golden.

Deglaze (i.e. scrape with a spatula) the bottom of the pan, but don't empty it.

Add one chopped shallot and saute for two minutes.

Add two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, and simmer until the vinegar is almost evaporated before adding a half-cup of red wine or port.

When the port has about half boiled-off, add one-half cup of Beef Stock, six dried and quartered Mission Figs, and a fourth-teaspoon of salt as well as a fourth-teaspoon of pepper.

Simmer until the sauce thickens, which should run you about three minutes.
spoon it over the sauteed chicken, and serve with brown rice, orzo, cous-cous, or any other starchy grain side-dish you could delight in.

I would have an ingredient list, but I imagine that will be pretty lengthy to put up here, and I have a sneaky suspicion that because of the backasswards nature of this particular entry, it will be on the lengthy side without including that bit of convenience anyways.

Today's ended on a bit of a bruised note, but I'll get to that later. First I have to tell you about a stranger I met at 1:38 AM last night. It was raining, you see, but it's been extraordinarily cold as of late, so I'd figured not to go out in it like I usually do, and that I would just lay in bed until I fell asleep. However, then I heard the steamwhistles of the trains, which for some reason are extra-audible in the rain. I could resist myself after that, and I knew I had to go out.

I hoofed it down the stairs to the parking lot of the apartment plot, and just kind of stood there for a bit. Eventually, a man got out of his car, lit a cigarette, and said:

Mysterious Stranger: "...Are you just standing in the rain?"
Me: "Yes. I like it."
Mysterious Stranger: "I like the rain, too."
Me: "I think it gets a bad reputation because the News calls it 'Bad Weather'."
Mysterious Stranger: "My girlfriend is one of those people who keeps an umbrella in her car at all times? She hates the rain. Says it makes her hair go everywhere."
Me: "Aah. My buddy's spent most of her time in a desert, so when rain comes, it's like, 'Aah-! Moisture!'"
Mysterious Stranger: "Ahaha."
Me: "I know how your girlfriend feels though. When my hair's not tied back, and it gets wet? I look like that uh, UFC Fighter, Clay Guida. I used to get teased for it."
Mysterious Stranger: "...I can see the resemblance. Hah-!"
Mysterious Stranger: "I used to have long hair, too, but I work security down at Carousel? This girl, she was about fifteen-"
Me: "Pulled it when you caught her shoplifting or something?"
Mysterious Stranger: "She digs her fingers into my hair and pulls, and then sprays perfume in my eyes. Almost as bad as mace. Probably the only reason she was carrying it."
Me: "Oof. Rough deal."
Mysterious Stranger: "After that I was like, 'I'm bald for as long as I hold this occupation.'"
Me: "You ever notice that you can always hear the steamwhistles when it's raining? It's like some weird Indian voodoo magic or something, but it's like the whistles only go when it's raining."
Mysterious Stranger: "...Huh. You know, you're right."
Me: "One of my friends - he lives in Puerto Rico. He's a huge train affectionado. He's pretty sad because Cabo Rojo used to have a Train Station, until they converted it into a library, because the island's all of like, a mile long?"
Mysterious Stranger: "That does seem kind of useless, yeah."
Me: "I think of him every time I hear those steamwhistles."
Mysterious Stranger: "Well, I've just finished an eighteen hour shift. I'm going to go pass out."
Me: "I'll probably do the same in a couple of minutes. It's pretty late."

And with that, he finished his cigarette, and went up to his apartment.
It was really pleasant to catch someone like that. They're few and far-between, talkative strangers are.

I'm living for myself, once again. It's a pretty good sobering-slap for me, and I'm keeping all my cogs a-whirlin' and all of my priorities straight. It's good to kind of dig my head out from my white-knighting lovesick helmet. All the same, I'm really taking account of all of my opportunities and resources, and jamming them forcefully beneath my window of opportunity. Yeah. Just try shutting that bitch with all the crap I've piled over its window-sill.

Which brings me to that sour note. First, let me set the stage; I had gotten off the phone with Liam after failing to contact Paul as well as Andy, and had sort of invited myself to a Skype phone-chat with ten or so other people, including Liam.
It was fun, but it would occasionally go quiet as people drifted in and out from Getamped matches, so I figured I'd bust out my trusty dusty Magenta Triple-Guts Grappler's Arms, and see if I still had it in me.

I didn't, but CyberConnect was more than pleased to show that it still had it, if "it" were shitty server connections that allow me to win with my cheap-ass accessory and train-collision fighting style.

I really squished Liam's toes. And then his potential Girlfriend one-on-ones me, and says I need to understand his circumstances. I quietly informed her that I've known him far longer than her, and have duly noted them as such, and well...

I guess I may as well have written, "HUGE BITCH, BLUH BLUH" across my forehead.

Drama, drama, drama.

Bluh.

I get up in four hours.
Hark, that be'th the call of IRL.