cortado

Hello beautiful darling, 

This is the last post for the year, I think. It is all so strange and magical. So full. 

The Christmas lights are up again, but I just keep thinking about last New Year’s Eve, and how I left the parties and went and ate a cheeseburger alone in a park, and stared at the skyline and decided that this would be a year where I would do what I want. 

I tried. 

Sometimes, it was lucky. 

I am so grateful. 

There are no recipes for you now-- I’m working on another project that will hopefully come to fruition this spring. I’ll tell you more later.

New Year’s Eve is approaching again. 

I don’t know what to do with that.
Everything is coming and going so fast. Everything is scary and too much and too sad, yet, I have a good feeling about the coming year.

But then again, deciding on optimism is really the only thing to be done. 

“2015 is the Quinceañera year!” I tell anyone who will listen, but I don’t think anyone else likes this idea as much as I do. 

I don’t know what else to say. 

I hope you’re eating well and treating yourself to some nice coffee drinks. 

Lately, I like cortados. 

I think I’m going to go get one right now. 

Before I go, I just want to say-- 

All I feel is hope 

and 

I love you. 

xoxo

m 

rice crispy treats

Time is passing, and it scares me. 

Thanksgiving is always a marker of this: the old people move slower, the young people move faster, have babies, get married. 
Everyone still eats green bean casserole. 

Jordan asked me if the drive back from Oklahoma "felt cinematic?" 
Sometimes it has. But this time it didn't. It just felt long. 
The year feels tired. 



The other day, I remembered this line from a Jorge Luis Borges poem that Julian read to me once, and there is a line that goes, "and you plant your own garden instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers." And I thought about this, because without even thinking, I bought an amaryllis bulb and put it in a turquoise pot filled with dirt. 
It has grown five inches since I planted it. 
So far, things look promising. 

The past few months have been so very quiet. Quiet months after a very full year. 
I came back from Thanksgiving and opened my windows to drifts of gold leaves that finally fell after the cold snap and hoped that this would make for some kind of momentum.

I do not know how you know when you are growing up. 



I've been making rice crispy treats with chocolate chips for the two boys I babysit. 
"Bring me one thousand hundred more next time!!!" They order me.
I've been trying to make pinto beans the way my mother does, only mine are never as good. 
A few months ago, I would come home tipsy from nights out and peel off my party clothes and stand in front of the stove, stirring a skillet of scrambled eggs, which inevitably burnt, because who has time for heat that isn't turned all the way up? 
And also, there was a rat in my kitchen last night and I didn't even know what to do. 



And maybe it's because of these things, or in spite of them, I feel so hopeful right now. 
Hopeful in my bones. 

I asked my grandmother, I said, "Grandma, if I decide that I'm going to have everything I want, do you think I'll get it?"
"No." She said. 
But I'm going to believe it anyways. 
And maybe the best part, when I really think about it, is that there are so many things-- gold leaves and the end of school and even drunk burnt eggs and sticky little boys who love rice crispy treats--  
I only want "one thousand hundred more" of all of this too. 

I'm going to believe it anyways. 

I love you. 

xoxo
m 

Rice Crispy Treats

3 Tablespoons butter
40 (about a bag) Marshmallows
6 cups rice crispy cereal 
1 cup chocolate chips (optional) 

In a large pot on stove, melt butter. Add marshmallows and toss to coat. Over heat, stir the marshmallows until they are completely melted and well blended. 
Add cereal and chocolate chips immediately, mix well. 
Press into a greased 13x9-inch pan. 
Cool completely.