Cooking For One Or More - Baked Potato

Take a medium to large baked potato. Microwave it for about 10 minutes depending on size.

Heat the oven to gas mark 5 and place one shelf at the top of the oven and the other in the middle.

Grab some beef and black peppercorn sausages and place three on a pre-heated baking tray and sprinkle with ground mustard seed.

Place the baked potato directly on the middle shelf and put the tray of sausages on the top shelf.

Cook for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, slice half a red onion into rings.

After the 20 minutes are up - remove the sausages and season further with some ground black pepper, Cornish sea salt, and ground coriander seed.

Spread the onion rings on the baking tray, baste them in the sausage fat a little.

Return the tray with the sausages and onion rings to the oven and cook for a further 15 minutes.

Prepare some gem lettuce leaves (However you prefer them).

Serve with lashings of butter and grated mature cheddar.

Cooking For One Or More - Lamb Burgers

To make two burgers.


Take half of a fair sized red onion and chop it into fine slices.

Add 250g of lamb mince and mix well.

Add an egg yolk for flavour. A duck egg works really well, but a chicken egg will do fine.

Add some seasoning to your own personal taste. Mint and rosemary are a good starter. I usually add to this ground coriander seed, ground mustard seed, ground szechuan pepper, Cornish sea salt, and a little onion powder.

Mix well. Mash it up really hard.

At this point it really helps keep your hands clean if you have a burger press.

Either mush the burger by gently patting it into a burger shape or fill the burger press and mash the mix into place with a fork.

Place the burgers on a pre-heated baking tray.

Cook in the middle of the oven at gas mark 6 for 30-40 minutes depending on preference.

Toast some buns or cook some fresh. Leave them to stand for a minute or two.

Serve with fresh tomato ketchup, gem lettuce leaves, roasted onion rings (The rest of the onion), and chips.

Enjoy.

What works works

I'm drunk.

What works works.

I arrived home from work stressed and dysfunctional and totally failing as an adult; even in my attempts to not be an adult.

I'm now drunk. I am now functional as an adult and as an adult attempting to not be an adult.

What works works.

Don't beat yourself up about it.

Make a Child Smile

Image from https://www.flickr.com/photos/carl1226/

Make a child smile. Not because you should. Because you can.

Gender

Image from http://www.livescience.com/37087-dsm-gender-dysphoria.html

What is gender?

There are biological aspects to gender. Each gender provides the gametes for a new lifeform, but that's just sexual reproduction. The long chain of several lines of evolution.

What is gender when contained in a social context?

Why do girls play with baby dolls?
Why do boys play with military dolls?

Why do we believe that gender is something inherent when it is obviously something that is taught.

I am a male with a feminine body (I've had my arse groped more than once in a club cos some misogynist thought I was female). If it's down to stature then my world should have consisted of being brought up in a feminine world.

I was lucky enough to be brought up with enough of a view of several different struggles for equality in a local world that was fighting for a rejection of prejudice to come to a number of generalisations.

Some languages don't have gender. Instead of She or He it is simply They.

Social gender is not inherent in genetics.

There is only one Human Race.

So where does your gender come from? What is derived from social conventions and what is genetically you? Are you defined by social context or by you?

I'm a human ape. What are you?

Life's a Game

Image from http://theskyfx.deviantart.com/

I read Luke Rinehart's The Dice Man as a child, probably pre teen. I consumed huge numbers of books as a child. You do that when everyone's telling you to sleep and you have a wonky circadian rhythm, no torch, and you know how batteries and bulbs and wires work. At least until you get an old valve radio or big black and white television and start listening to the world service or watching open university on BBC 2.

The Dice Man was an influential book along with Stephen King's IT, James Herbert's Rats, and a bunch of other adult drama and horror.

The Dice Man isn't a way of doing something, it's a way of thinking about something.

We make decisions all the time. We apparently make all of them subconsciously long before we make them consciously. I see this in effect all the time.

Two times recently in my life I saw two different people act out an identical act for similar reasons and goals. The resemblance was uncanny. In both cases both seemed confident that they were making the decision at the time they were with me. In both cases they had made the decision long before. In neither case do I believe that they had consciously made the decision. In both cases their conscious was genuinely trying to decide between two courses of action.

Most days as I go through life I see discussions that have an obvious outcome. The decision has already been made.

When we think we're rolling the dice has nothing to do with when the dice were rolled. This is an element of The Dice Man. A friend of mine uses a coin toss to expose her subconscious. Her approach to ambivalent decisions is to toss a coin. If you agree with the coin's outcome you go ahead with the coin's "decision", it either means you didn't care or you agree. If you disagree you'll tell the coin to fuck off. This exposes the unconscious decision. It forces you to accept the choice you have already made.

This is how we travel through life. We make decisions. The decisions we make have consequences.

We roll the dice to deal with those consequences.

The Slippery and Darkened Spiral

Depression is a spiral for me.

Each person I know who's been through depression has a different way of seeing it. The classic feeling for me many years ago used to be one of feeling like I was in a tunnel someone else made and mostly I couldn't see the light at the end of it. Occasionally there'd be a glimmer but it was impossible to tell if it was an actual light or if my brain was just making things up due to the long term meta sensory deprivation.

I got out of the tunnel. I had 15 years or so of living in the light. I occasionally got depressed, everyone does, but let a day or so go by and whatever it was wasn't important any more.

This time it's not a tunnel. This time it's a very dark and slippery spiral.

In recent weeks I've sat at the bottom of this spiral well a lot.

Occasionally I scramble up the slippery spiral or I jump from level to level and briefly get to see the light. It takes a huge amount of effort both to get anywhere near the top and a huge amount of effort to hold on to wherever I have made it to up the spiral.

While my strength lasts I try to use being in the lighter shadows to improve my situation. I call out to those around me and let them know I am still alive. They matter to me.

When I'm sat at the bottom of the spiral I rest and plan for my next assault on the spiral. This time the plan will work.

The worst times? When you have an obligation and your state of mind is fighting you every step of the way to fulfil that obligation. I'm useless, I can't even get out of bed and make a coffee, let alone do my duty. You kick and scream at yourself from inside. You lie to yourself about how things will be if you just get on with it. You try and work out who you used to be and how you got here. You go round in circles.

If you're suffering from chronic stress as well... you shake, you're cold, you're hot, you're thirsty and by the time you've made a drink you're no longer thirsty. You're hungry, you make food, you throw it away with only the tiniest nibble taken to justify having made it. Food disgusts you, people disgust you, you disgust you. You spike on adrenalin and then crash and become comatose.

Nothing is enticing. Nothing is worth it.

Nothing.

You sit in the well at the bottom of the spiral.