Last night during my dreams was a scene in which I was visibly and comfortably pregnant. I was traveling with friends on a train and men and women both paused and gave me that look of either amazement or “awww” that I’ve seen my two co-workers get when we go out for lunch or coffee. One of the female friends was completely doting over me and I believe there was a guy there that was my husband/partner or something maybe?

That part of the dream didn’t last very long, but still… weird. No offense to Rice or Beattie, but I don’t think pregnancy is for me!

The Whitman-Walker Clinic has revealed the number of its clients testing positive for HIV jumped from 80 in the first half of 2007 to 266 in the first half of 2008–an unprecedented increase of 232 percent.

At each of our testing sites, we are seeing an increasing number of young gay men, particularly African American men, coming to us newly infected. These are young men who don’t remember the first wave of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and came of age when effective treatments were available. As a result, they have never seen HIV as a major problem.

I am still having such a hard time wrapping my brain around why people are not more careful and don’t see this as a huge issue.

[article from Washington Blade, image from Copyranter]

There really is nothing quite like roasting birds in the house with plenty of garlic (and thyme or rosemary too). Even if I completely screwed up the hens, the smell in my apartment would have been good enough that resorting to nuking something frozen would have still been all right. I still think Yankee Candle is really missing out on the food scents and that “Roast Chicken” could be a best-seller. The one thing I forgot to buy in my last big grocery store/freezer storage run was a whole bird, though I more think of those as the things you buy when you plan to use them in the next day or two, not to put on ice.

So my “At-Home Restaurant Month” began last night with the roasted fowl, roasted broccoli (which may be the only way I’ll ever eat it again) and some jasmine rice tossed with sauteed mushrooms. It ended up making just enough for two meals, which is perfect for me. Since it was my first time with Cornish game hens, I followed the recipe to the letter. I see a few places that I can take some liberties next time for a little extra flavor, though this version was about as low cal as I could make it and still tasty, so no complaints.

The focus on decent sized portions and not ending up with leftovers that will sit in the fridge all week and then get ignored seems to be a good one. I’m not sure what meal is up next, but so far the cost of this versus going out is still a winner.

You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces–just good food from fresh ingredients.

–Julia Child

And it’s true, I didn’t have to hunt down any weird (or expensive) ingredients in the “middle aisles” aside from chicken stock, wine and a baster which I didn’t already have among my tools. Everything else was from the “outer ring” of the store. Much as I’d love to throw down and create some masterpiece, going with simple and tasty seems like a much better option any day.

What is it about elevators that allow them to retain a distinct memory of the aromas of previous riders? In recent days my morning ride down has been filled with the smell of an over-cologner, wet dog and just this afternoon to go to the grocery store? Corn chips–not the smelly feet kind, just corn chips. I’m used to the elevators at work smelling like dirty rotten smokers, but the scents at home are just weird!

As I was on the bus coming home from the grocery store, a woman comes up waving a scratch-off lottery ticket and says, “I just wanted to share my good news, I just won $100!” I told her congratulations and she giddily went back to her own seat. I had to wonder how much she’d spent on tickets, but no need to be a damper on her triumph.

I’m starting my “At Home Restaurant-Like Week” a little early and thinking about expanding it to a full month. I picked up some Cornish game hens tonight and I’ll try to do something interesting with those and, per some twitter advice, some substantial side dishes. I know game hens are hardly exotic, but I’ve never cooked with them before and a key is that they make for a good sized serving for one person. I don’t expect this experiment to necessarily be full of healthy dishes, but matching portion size to meal size is still important not only for calories, but for boredom. I’m not averse to leftovers, but it would be nice to be able to enjoy a lot of different kinds of dishes in a shorter time span without having to pawn off tupperware onto friends and co-workers.

And I think I may have to start reading Miss Conduct’s Blog. This quote from a January entry about fat-pride and fat-phobia cracked me up:

As I’ve said before, if you think fat people have no self-discipline, consider the fact that they haven’t killed you yet.

There is nothing quite like the feeling of an “innocent” cocktail kicking your ass. Last night at Halo I had an Elderflower Fizz, a nice little cocktail or so I thought. About a shot or two each of gin and elderflower liqueur, shaken and strained into a champagne flute, topped with champagne with a berry floated in it. It was called both “disgusting” and “an old person’s drink” by one of the people I was meeting for Happy Hour.

A few of these after some gin & tonics and I was flying high. I hadn’t meant to have so many, but we made friends at the bar and one of them made that dangerous downward-pointing swirling finger motion to Victor that means “another round of what everyone’s having.” This led to me realizing that I hadn’t had enough to eat before going out to Happy Hour, and then led to a drunken stumble up 14th Street to get to the metro. We ran into one of my former neighbors and his wife, but I have absolutely no idea what we chatted about except that they were terribly amused at my drunkenness.

I’m feeling like the best thing for me would be a little nosh and a little coffee so that I can get back to normal and get on with my day.