It's come down to this.......incredible soup. Cie la vie.

I can't believe I am stooping to putting a recipe in my blog. How lame is that? But I am an incredible cook and a less than satisfactory trip to Uno Chicago Grill for soup, Southewestern Chicken and White Bean, prompted me to come home and make something of my own for a southwestern chicken bean that is 1000 times better. The appetizer platter I had was very good, but the soup was like paste in bowl. The waiter, cute as he was, was unable to provide enough distraction to stop me from thinking to myself...you paid money for this? And so, on this miserably snowy day I really invented something really good!

This soup is spicy, thick, ultra nutritious, low in calories, a taste treat and a texture sensation! It takes very little time to prepare from scratch and makes a wonderful meal during a cold spell. It is full of protein, iron, and antioxidants. The beans and corn give this soup a crunch. The spices give it southwestern flavor, and the amount of hot spice ingredients give it a little bit of zing....but not too much! It is near perfect.

SOUTHWESTERN CHICKEN GARBANZO SOUP!

Ingredients:

A whole boneless skinless chicken breast
1 1lb 12 oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 15.5 oz can Goya Garbanzo Beans
1 10 oz package frozen chopped spinach
1 1lb bag frozen white sweet corn
1 1/2 cups water
1 table spoon hot sauce
About 15 shakes garlic powder
About 20 shakes onion powder
About 1 teaspoon Sea Salt
About 1 table spoon chicken bullion
About 7 shakes ground white pepper
4 packets Goya Vegetable and Salad Seasoning.

In a large pot bring the 1 1/2 cups water to a boil.

Add the Sea Salt and the chicken bullion.

Stir.

While this is coming to a boil, cut the chicken into tiny cubes, perhaps around a quarter inch square. Remember, slightly frozen chicken is easier to cut into cubes. As soon as you are finished, toss them into the boiling pot. Stir. Let this cook for a few minutes.

Add the can of crushed tomatoes. Keep stirring as you add the shakes of white pepper, garlic and onion powders and hot sauce.

Allow this to boil for a few minutes. Then add the block of frozen chopped spinach. Allow this to come back to a full boil and stir occasionally to break up the block of frozen spinach. Once the spinach is thoroughly mixed into the tomato/chicken mixture and come back up to a full boil, add the bag of frozen corn. Stir occasionally while mixture returns to a full boil.

Stir in the contents of the 4 packets of Goya Vegetable and Salad Seasoning.

Add the entire contents of the can of Garbanzo Beans. Fill the can about 1/3 of the way with water. Swirl it around and loosen all of the beans from the bottom of the can as well as all of the bean goo that settled in the bottom of the can while it was shelved. Pour this into the soup.

Bring soup back to a full boil. Reduce cooking heat and simmer for about 10-15 minutes.

Serve piping hot with salt and pepper to taste, add a few shakes of grated cheese!

YUM!!

Sometimes life gets so boring and full of winter's cold weather dolldrums that all you want to do is sit around, watch TV and drink. But if you are just the slightlest bit creative you can play around in the kitchen and invent recipe or two. Anyone can cook if they make even the slightest attempt. You pay rent or a mortgage on a dwelling that has a kitchen. Use it once in a while for more than microwaving coffee. And you can impress the right guy when you find him. Truly, the fastest way to a man's heart is through his stomach. And as it was once said....."But of course it is, all those nasty rib bones and cartiledge don't get in the way when you go through the stomach!"

Enjoy!

And the beat goes on

A thin crust of ice
a leafless tree
a waveless pond
a dock unused
the plow lies dormant and rusting in the field.

Winter sheds its merciless slow death upon us.

the lights seem to glow alittle bit different here,
a magical video quality fills the air
as if all were in fast forward
in time lapse photography
unfolding the nightshift
masking the obvious
the eyes play tricks of perception upon us
in twilight time all things are possible.

Who is that that passes us by?
Is it myself I see?
Is it the myself I would like to be?

He smirks as he passes
disdain in his manner.
His thoughts are all filled with uncourteous patter,
a sneer of a smile shows sharp tooth intent
an adolescence benevolently wasted, unspent.
To recapture glory,
to live but again,
the price that we pay is sorrow, but then
what is fair cost of hope; second times?
How high the bar we hope to outshine?
What we missed out on and what we've took on,
One but does wonder, where has it gone?

And the beat goes on.

Psychonurse blog updates

If you want a treat, check out the Psychonurse blog. http://psychonursetheband.blogspot.com/ The band was really ahead of their time and opened the doors for lots of bands to come. Calling themselves post-industrial music, they actually expressed the angst that became common in following bands with an in-your-face, non sugar coated approach that at the time was considered shocking and today would still turn a few heads. Having opened for the Ramones, and regularly played CBGB's where they became a quick favorite, having appeared on the Morton Downey Junior show ( a precursor who paved the way for Donahue and Springer) Psychonurse rose in popularity and legend. A member of Metallica, when asked his favorite band by MTV once said with conviction.....Psychonurse. A musical secret? A musical legend? A true fright to return in the manner of the undead? You will be able to judge for yourself as a documentary on the Nurses is in preproduction, and a reunion show and possibly, if we're lucky, tour is in the works. Watch for Psychonurse and be cautious. Be very cautious! http://psychonursetheband.blogspot.com/

'Pay to Play', will you take the cash or what's behind the curtain?

I recently had a conversation with one of my long time friends about hookups. Keeping with the week long theme of hookups I figured it might be appropriate in this series. After his reading about my adventures with phone dating he called me up and relayed this little bit of wisdom. I have yet to try out the theory, but I won't say never.

He has long bittered in the quest for love and romance and says that for that fleeting moment of affection, that nanosecond before you say.....UGGGHHHHHHH oh fuck, okay get out, it is much better to pay for sex and fulfillment than to date, have a relationship, go to dinner, send flowers, meet the parents. But he says it is funny the reactions to offers of 'Pay to Play'.

Now of course that might bring to mind the scandalizing term....prostitution and the stigma it entails not to mention the involvement of......in a group way.....law enforcement officers, so I will not condone this method. I also will not condemn it as it has its fit in societal needs.

If a Str8 man offers a woman money for her....ass-ets, cold hard cash out in the open, it is prostitution and unless she is a working girl she may be offended and blow him off in a non-satisfying way. Unless it is at the least, her part time job.

A girlfriend will definitely soften her opinion of what is distasteful to her if the money is thrown at her in a more subtle way such as converted to the form of a a car, designer bag, coke-minus the rum the gas bubbles and carmel color and the only glass it comes with is the mirror it is laid out on, a short trip to an exotic local, or even common today....expesive but personal enhancement surgeries.

My buddy claims it also works this way with gay men. He told me of one instance where a guy was absolutely indignant that he should be offered money to bare his wares in much the way a chinese buffet is offered up, spread out, all you can eat, hot and fresh. If it had been in person rather than over the phone my friend would have been proudly displaying the war wounds that only an open handed limp wristed indignant salute can create, five fingers cross the cheekbones, red and throbbing. Their anticipated conquest was highly insulted that he be thought of as a prostitute. This was the same man that had propositioned my friend about a matter involving my friends well worn sox and sneakers, a matter of foot massage and oral callus softening. When my friend had said he wanted to orally please the shrimper, do some intimate snorkeling, and the Al Bundy-Shoe Salesman wannabe was not having any part of it, my friend said "hey, I would be willing to toss you a few bucks for your time and effort" and that opened the flood gates, got the whole ball of earwax rolling. So the man that wanted to play shoestore.... and that's okay, takes offense at someone else's fantasy (convenient excuse for being prostitutionally incorrect isn't it?) of Paying to Play.

And my friend added, that is a typical reaction by gay men he has encountered, although many say, 'Oh, you don't have to do that. I am in it for the fun'.

Strangely enough my buddy goes on, "A Str8 guy will not react that way. Either you will get a punch in the teeth, lie bleeding in the gutter, or you will get.......I ain't fuckin queer man. How much did you say?" And from there as long as no one else finds out, an extra day's pay never hurt anyone, saves some poor soul from taking some well appreciated alone time, and saves on Kleenex costs. And depending on the residual guilt, buys a girlfriend- left out of the laborious occasion- a little 'sumtin sumtin' and an extra sore vagina, to prove to themselves they didn't have a good time after all, that work is work.

So in synopsis, my much older and wiser friend has come to these 3 conclusions after years of unexpected trips to the ATM.

Women do not like to be offered money and object to cold hard business negotiations....but gifts are nice, if they think they are not doing it for the gifts, but the potential to bear your children later on in life and get half your retirement pension in a divorce.

Gay men are more offended than women at a pay for play scenario although their expectations are more realistic and hope the relationship lasts at least 20 minutes, free or not.

Str8 men will either, worst case scenario, maim you and make your orthodontist and plastic surgeons ecstatic or, best case scenario, consider it a paid chore much like mowing the lawn, but more like cleaning the pipes, do only the job they are paid for, do not clean up anyone's mess but their own, and put their own tools away.

And always remember my buddy's words to live by:

"The older a man gets.....the more attractive his wallet becomes."

And the hits just keep on coming!

So we are still getting blisters from letting our fingers do the walking. Apparently it is more difficult to find Mr. Right Now than most people imagine.

Perhaps my standards have gotten too high.

Perhaps I have been spoiled by hanging out with straight men too much.

I now have this new standard I follow. If I want to be with a man, I want them to be masculine. Not the least bit feminine. If you are going to be with a feminine male, you might as well be with a woman. What's the whole point of wanting a man if they aren't one. Now guys, don't rag on me too bad on that one please. It is a matter of personal preference, and there is nothing wrong with feminine males, TS, TG, whatever. It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent's Fritters, or so they once said in a movie called Motel Hell.

I used to joke that I had very high standards, a man had to have a penis and be breathing, but the breathing part was optional. I now find that in reality I won't touch someone just for the sake of touching them. If they don't fit the guidelines I find attractive I can't seem to make that mental jump that screams MERCY FUCK just because I have put myself into the proximity of thier penis. By that I mean being in the same room, not the same zipper space.

My thumb is going into routine spasms from repeatedly pressing #3 as is the tip of my index finger. My fingernail bads actually hurt. My brain is gettting fried by the radiowaves beamed to my short antenna cordless phone and my neighbors with a scanner have gotten bored listening to the same old ads over and over so that I can remail in the 'Live Connector' for free.

I have learned a few more things about phone sex dating. Guys are stupid. An ad that specifically reads looking for guys 18-26 will routinely get you calls from guys 52 and over.

Guys that you meet and rule out have no short term memory and do not hesitate to approach you as a complete stranger next time they hear you on line. Guys that have been offended by you online and have hung up indignant in your ear(though how anyone calling a phone sex line can find anything offensive is beyond me) will contact you the next day and will verbally caress you for 15 minutes until you bring them into reality by saying...I think you are messaging me by mistake.....yesterday I offended you and you hung up. They quicklky disappear whether out of embarrassment or out of realizing neither of you wants what's being offered.

Puerto Rican guys, 6'3" while sounding nice in theory can be soft, mushy, have boobs like Pamela Anderson, and wave their hands like rainbow banners in the wind all the while asurring you that they are extremely masculine and on the downlow while emphasizing that they have jobs such as club bouncer and security staff. It makes you wonder if things need policing, do they wave their magic wands at the perpetrators, or do they snap them with their flowery thong?

So anyway I was thankfully spared from seeing the "yeah, it's 8 inches when it is hard and has a cute little curve to the left" Puerto Rican man, or was it man wannabe, unit by saying I was tired, maybe we could mess around tomorrow. Call me.

That is the beauty of having an identifying ringtone. You can give it out without endangering your home number, and it has no real effect on your life other than when that special bell rings, you don't salivate like Pavlov's dog but rather cringe in avoidance and abhor the phone.

Not to say that I am the greatest catch on the planet, which by far I am not, And I am a victim at times of desperation, but I do think that I am a significant evelotionary step above almost all of the guys I talked to or met on this phone line. All things run it's course I guess and the novelty is quickly tarnishing on this endeavor. So far I am out a few bucks for the service, have met three unsuitable guys and lost countless hours of sleep. Who knows what tomorrow brings and what promises of companionship and lustful fun may dawn on the horizon, but I know I grow bored with phone 'dating' quite quickly.

When my allotted time is up this go round, I will not renew my subscription. I have better things to do.