Social Exposure

On the corner where I grew up, there were loads of serious accidents. The traffic light wasn’t properly run; there was supposed to be a green arrow for left turns or some sort of directional delay on the green light or something. I thought about that a lot when I was a kid, and I considered writing to a newspaper or the city hall or Batman or someone but never got around to it. Like 6 years after I thought about it, the city fixed the light and made the intersection way safer. I can’t stop thinking about the implied accidents I could’ve prevented. God damn it.

Managing a social life has always been important. It seems more important now because social transparency (I don’t know if this is actually a term, but if it isn’t, I’ll define it as the ease with which others can evaluate aspects of your social life) is at an all-time high, with the existence of the internet, social media, increased population density, etc.. You can’t get away with sending dick pics to a random flirt without getting on ESPN (Hi, Brett Favre). In any case, it’s important to manage your social life in a way that fulfills you, or you’ll simply miss out on a large part of being a person.

Throughout high school, accruing “popularity” and making cool friends was like grinding an RPG character. College allowed for more freedom, though if you go to/went to a small school, it might’ve been similar or worse than high school. In any case, post-college, early-mid 20s social life involves carefully juggling relationships of various character.

At some point during undergrad, I realized that I didn’t value all of the “friendships” that I remained handcuffed to. Quite a few people I was in relatively constant contact with, and more importantly devoted lots of emotional energy to, were simply not worth my time. Each had their own reason (x is a douchebag, y is unreliable, z is untrustworthy, alpha has no sense of humor, beta only talks to me when he needs something from me) and I went through a cathartic journey of deleting them from my mental.

I look back on the experience like an old sitcom and either giggle or cringe at the disintegration of each particular relationship. Some looked like a catalyzed chemical reaction, others like a snowman slowly melting in late March. Unsurprisingly, people don’t like being fully ignored, especially when they’re used to you responding to their every prod. The ones that really didn’t like being ignored needed a final talking-to. It sort of felt like being the first person to tell someone that they have full blown AIDS, and every bit as necessary. In high school, it’s much more risky to purge yourself of social parasites, because you might end up in their trigonometry class next year, and you have to deal with that shit for an hour four days out of the week. In your 20s though, it’s a much more rewarding experience.

I highly advocate draining your social circle of people that are simply -EV (pure liabilities as acquaintances/friends). This may be a dramatic process (person won’t stop trying to chat with you on Skype and starts calling you non-stop if you don’t respond) in some cases, or a simple Swiffer sweep of the keeps-sending-you-Facebook-spam scum. Either way, the human mind is built to store up to 150 connections, don’t waste them on idiots from high school that you secretly wish would die. Defragment your social hard drive and make room for awesome people who you genuinely like. If there aren’t enough of those to keep you occupied, it might be time to go out and find some.

Coping Mechanisms

The year following the completion of my undergrad degree and subsequent move back to the US (land of the free, where “free” defines the highest stakes of poker you are allowed to play) has definitely been the most spiritually challenging, as the “EV-knows-best” poker player mindset lost its sidekick, “degenerate-student.”

Being a student and having the perfect balance between responsibility, freedom, progress, and social inclusion, I quickly learned, was winning a lot of battles on the “feeling like I’m doing something with my life” front. Once the month-long post-graduation delirium died down, cold, salty reality ushered in a necessary wave of sobriety. The next several paragraphs communicate the experience.

Networking & Delusion:

Landing a job that pays bills and doesn’t suck is a sweeter deal than many accept. Knowing a guy that can help you get a job is solid. Knowing a guy that knows a guy that can help you, acceptable. Not knowing a guy like that? Prepare for desperation. Using your college/high school alumni network, relatives, former hockey teammates, etc. should become second nature to you before you start looking for a job. Even if you are happily unemployed (poker player, gigolo, whatever), you should make an effort to get to know lots of people and have them find you desirable. This will be a rewarding process (you’ll feel like you’re making friends, except these are people that will have tangible rewards –> everyone has some friends that offer no upside whatsoever). Creating a linkedin page is a good place to start.

Streamlining the mind towards pure rationality is almost a no-brainer net positive. A strong sense of judgment and logic, risk-analysis, etc. go hand-in-hand with the “EV” model of whatever pursuit. I’ll defend delusion for a second by saying that there is simply more to the human experience than a simple model of “factors in –> happiness out” and the pure maximization of expected-value will sometimes steer you away from certain genuine positives and occasionally towards insanity.

I’ve begun to curb my cynicism by embracing different activities with no distinct rationale and (perhaps only temporarily) shedding inhibitions. Yoga & meditation have reconnected me with the more emotional and spiritual idea of self. Volunteering reinforced the importance of community and humility (I used to be the “fuck recycling” guy who threw his empty beer bottles into some poor lady’s trash container). Young people in today’s world are conditioned in a fuck-bitches-get-money/fend-for-yourself/YOLO world. Sometimes going for a walk and helping some old lady carry her groceries doesn’t suck though. And sometimes finding a cute girl in your yoga class who wants to go for drinks doesn’t suck either.

Delusion when it comes to serious career steps can be tricky. I keep in touch with several people who belong to the “if I believe in myself, I will be able to achieve (achievement that they are extremely unlikely to attain)” school and I’m not fully supportive (perhaps it is because they are doing it on their parents’ bill and not actually putting themselves at risk of potentially soul-crushing student debt like the non-1%ers), but being overly cautious is no way to live either.

I apologize for the vague and borderline maudlin tone of this post. I’ll leave it with no ending and will continue to post further thoughts on the subject and welcome all of your ideas. Soul-searching is tough without defined goals and I’m in something of a “throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks” phase. It’s all a part of being a person I think (hope?).

Note: read Lost at Sea by Jon Ronson. It is awesome, terrifying, captivating and witty.

Lasagna + Evernote + Caravan Palace

(note to self: replace with photo I’ve taken once blog picks up)

I’ve decided to make the first post of the new (hopefully at least somewhat substantive) blog a simple lasagna recipe that I’ve made a handful of times. I promise the next time I make lasagna, I’ll take a picture and replace the pic that’s currently up with one that’s my own. The idea of posting a recipe gives this blog an iota of functionality already, huge step up from the profane sadistic fantasies contained in my former blog.

Note to reader: I will intersperse blog posts with general life advice that you should heed (heed it or I’ll kill you).

Advice to reader: Download Evernote, an app for your phone, computer, iPad, ass-vibrator, etc., which will vastly improve your life (www.evernote.com). You can sync your computer and phone together and create easy-to-navigate notes to make to-do lists, save recipes (you read this on your laptop and want to save the recipe on your phone? easy “clip” feature on your Chrome browser will allow you to save the recipe in 15s). If you aren’t using Chrome, by the way, please close your browser, go to Home Depot, rent a chainsaw, and decapitate yourself with it.

Quick aside on recipe:

Difficulty: 2/10 (if you know what a frying pan looks like, you’re set)

Price: 3/10 (costs like $30 for 10 servings)

Delicious-ness: 7/10 (your stoner roommates will rate this an 11/10)

It’s not ether-broiled diamond-encrusted filet mignon, but it’s pretty fucking good as far as easy to make Italian food goes.

Let’s begin.

Your local supermarket. It is 10:45 on a cold Friday morning. Your level of hunger: 4/10 (you just consumed an Eggo waffle and a Red Bull). Your level of excitedness: 10 (you are going to make lasagna). Your level of satiation: 0 (see: hunger).

You acquire the following:

• PRE-COOKED lasagna pasta (http://ninecooks.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451fa5069e20168e6438d48970c-800wi). Do NOT try to buy un-cooked pasta to try to cook yourself. This is how Bin Laden got himself killed.
• Fresh basil (a handful of leaves should suffice)
• 3 cans of tomato sauce (cans should be like 8oz, I use a brand called Hunts)
• One big thing of Ricotta cheese (should be in the cheese or yogurt aisle). When I say “thing,” I don’t mean vagina, I mean one of those plastic containers. They’ll have little ones and bigger ones. Buy a bigger one.
• Grated parmesan cheese (whatever amount, it’s impossible to accidentally not buy enough)
• 1 lb of shredded cheese. I highly recommend a 50/50 mix of mozarella and provolone, but you can try really any shredded cheese. Cheddar might be too sharp. I dunno, I’m not actually a food expert, just a guy who can make lasagna.
• 1-2 lbs of ground beef (I recommend 85% lean, doesn’t really matter). This really just depends on how much meat you like in your lasagna. Go for like 1.5 lbs on your first try then adjust accordingly
• 1 onion

You should already have the following in your kitchen. If you do not, acquire the following:

• Eggs (you will need one for the ricotta mixture)
• Garlic powder/onion powder/random seasoning mixes you like for your sauces, ground beef etc. Salt.
• A DEEP PAN TO COOK THE LASAGNA IN (you cannot cook this on a cookie sheet). It needs to be like a couple inches deep. If you don’t have a good one, buy one of those shiny metal ones from the store. Just make sure it’s deep, otherwise your lasagna won’t be in layers and life will suck.

Arrive home. Hunger: 7/10. Excitedness: 10/10. Satiation: -3/10.

Pour glass of red wine. Consume glass. Hunger: 8/10. Excitedness: 12/10. Satiation: 0/10.

Pour another glass of red wine to consume while cooking.

Begin by grabbing a frying pan, adding some oil, and cooking the ground beef. Mix it thoroughly, season it, mash it up into tiny pieces and keep cooking. Chop up the onion into tiny little pieces and mix it into the beef once the moisture from the beef goes away. (Beef moisture gone –> add onion). Stir in the onion so its cooked thru and adds tons of flavor to the beef. This process is way easier than it sounds.

While beef is cooking, open up your cans of sauce and dump them into a big ass bowl. Just whatever bowl is big enough to contain that amount of sauce. Chop up half the basil into tiny pieces and add it to the sauce, along with salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, whatever seasoning you like. If you find random weird seasonings in your cabinets, try them before adding (I am not responsible for you adding UNCLE JASON’S STANKY ASS FLAKES to your sauce).  Once your sauce tastes good, it’s done. Keep tasting it in between sips of wine though.

The Ricotta mixture took me more than one try to make because I am retarded and forgot the egg. Take another big bowl and dump the Ricotta into it. It’s got kind of a weird consistency and keep jiggling around like Paula Abdul’s tits. Feel free to smash it up in the bowl. Then add a bunch of parmesan and the other half of the basil. Mash it around with a spoon and then add salt. Mash it up some more. Taste. If it doesn’t taste parmesan-y enough, add some more. Once you like how it tastes, whisk an egg and mix it in to seal the Ricotta mixture.

Once the three main components of the lasagna are prepared, you are ready to build it. Take that deep pan you bought and set it somewhere where you can add stuff to it without spilling it all over stuff. I recommend a counter.

The layers of the lasagna are as follows.

1. Sauce (add LOTS of sauce at each step, the noodles will absorb a ton of it)
2. Noodles (line these up like Tetris so everything is covered –> some may be vertical some horizontal)
3. Meat + sauce
4. Noodles
5. Ricotta mixture (NO SAUCE)
6. Noodles
7. Meat + sauce

HARD PART’S OVER!!

Cover the lasagna with aluminum foil and cook @ 350F (175C) for 50 minutes. Once the 50 minutes is up, remove the aluminum foil and cover with the 1lb of shredded cheese that you bought. Try to add it as evenly as possible, but don’t worry, it’ll even out even more once it melts. Bake for 10 more minutes under the *BROIL* feature of your oven (where it says BROIL, click on that). If your oven doesn’t have a BROIL feature, you are living in the 1300s and cannot read this blog. Sucks to be you.

“What should I do for 50 minutes?” you’re probably pleading. I got you covered. “I don’t like red wine, I only drink beer!!!” Don’t worry, I got you covered too, you philistine.

Throw on some Caravan Palace and crack open a DogFish Head 60 Minute IPA.

CP will give you a nice break from your usual playlist of Lil Wayne and DJ Tiesto and whatever else you learned to listen to at frat parties. It’s very stylish electro-swing and you will like it. People that aren’t the college freshman meme will also appreciate it and you’ll feel better about yourself for listening to it.

 

 

 

Dogfish Head 60m IPA is a delicious, somewhat sophisticated craft beer. It’s like the Dexter of beers, while you’ve been stuck in a Big Bang Theory frat-boy ultra light piss-beer prison. You’re starting to open your eyes to the world of being a young adult. It feels good.

Hunger: 9/10. Excitedness: 9/10. Satiation: 2/10.

Once the lasagna is ready, don’t start stabbing at it right out of the oven. It needs to sit for 30 minutes before you can cut it, so it can solidify. For these 30 minutes, I recommend another IPA. Maybe call some hottie you know and be like “Darling, if you’re here within half an hour, you won’t regret it.” Then go change out of that stained Aeropostale hoodie and into some slacks and super smooth button-up (more on style later in this blog).

Enjoy the meal and remember that you can always freeze leftovers if you’re not feeding many people and don’t want to eat the same thing every day for a week. Enjoy Caravan Palace and the beer too.

Stay tuned for more blog action. I’ll try to be more consistent and hopefully as substantive with the rest of my posts. I’ll try to get into all kinds of stuff that I’ve been experiencing and finding noteworthy in the last few years and I’ll share it. More to come on bachelor cooking, cool music, style, sex, running a meth lab, etc!