I made red velvet pancakes and so can you

Red velvet pancakes - a dream I dared to dream. I actually don't even think this entry needs any backstory because red velvet pancakes speak for themselves.

Here's how you too can make your red velvet pancake dreams come true.

Ingredients

- 1.5 cups red velvet cake mix

- .5 cup Bisquick

- 2 eggs

- 1 cup milk (I used skim plus to offset some of the calorie load)

Directions

- Mix ingredients in bowl with electric mixer.

- Pour small portions into skillet. This part is important. Because of the cake mix, the pancakes don't hold together quite as well as normal and if you make them bigger than about 4-5", they will be a bear to flip (learned this the hard way). 

- Also important - cook them a little longer than you might normally. I like really light pancakes generally but these need a little longer to cook.

When they were done, I frosted them with one of the whipped versions of a cheesecake frosting, because regular would be too heavy.

After that all you need is an insulin shot and you're good to go... They are pretty sweet so you'll be happy you had smaller ones.

Enjoy! 

keep 'em laughing

i was a very serious child.

this is probably mostly owing to the fact that i never felt like i fit in with my peer group.  i realize this is the oldest gay story in the book and i actually think that the reason i didn't fit in with kids was not my sexuality (the reason i didn't fit in with teenagers however...) i have always been told i was an "old soul," which i think was the original "it gets better."  i just plain did not get children. this is probably why i was always reading books that were way above my age level (to my parents great credit, the only one they ever took away was "the thornbirds." to my questionable credit, i never finished it after that).

my parents got a video camera in 1986 and there is this video of my brother's 2nd birthday a year later where i am overheard many times calling my mom "mother," and seriously intoning each request as if i'm a character in from a dicken's novel. i was 5.

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ding dong! the bells are gonna chime!

disclaimer: i wasn't going to make this a political blog and that is still my intention. this however, is going to be a political post. the opinions of this blog are unabashedly liberal. if that bothers you, i'm sorry, but i still encourage you to read it.

yesterday morning, i was in a mood.

we had been waiting for the supreme court to rule on DOMA and Prop 8 and not only had they not, but they had essentially gutted the Voting Rights Act, disenfranchising minority voters in the very places that had tried so hard to keep them from voting not 7 months ago. so i was pissed.

and i was pissed that very few people seemed to care.  and i said something snarky on facebook about how i wished that even half the people who had so gleefully been coming up with butter puns about paula deen days before cared that discrimination was just made law by the supreme court.

and i was scared about what that meant for the marriage cases coming up.

and then, through social media, i heard about wendy davis. and my day totally changed.

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i got all my sisters with me

i've been thinking a lot about 2 things this week: the offspring and family.  the former because i forgot how much i loved that band until i heard "self esteem" on a tv show the other day and the 16 year old skater boy in my soul, the one who is usually overshadowed by the 16 year old gay boy in my soul, rose up and screamed, "you should go look them up on spotify and re-live high school." so i am. because offspring rules.

don't try to put me in the box, i'm an enigma burrito wrapped up in a tortilla of mystery.

the latter is because i often spend a lot of time thinking about my family and perhaps more than usual this week because tomorrow my beloved brother is moving to his new job in chicago. i miss him already.  but i'm actually not here to talk about that.  that pain i shall continue to stuff down out of sight, repressing it in a completely healthy and normal german way.

the other reason i've been thinking about family recently was triggered by, of course, pop culture.

the twee-ist of all twee movies ever, "frances ha," came out recently and there was an article in entertainment weekly with greta gerwig about it in which she said: "I think when you’re in your late 20's, you realize that friends are not your family. They will go off and have a family of their own. You will go off and find your own family." (this is a direct quote, i actually looked it up to make sure i got it right).

ms. gerwig, i respectfully disagree.

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and the award goes to

my brother recently accepted a job about which he said: "i would call this a dream job but i didn't know to dream for a job like this."

sometimes you don't know something is a dream until it comes true.

i have often said that theatre is an addiction, not a profession.  i have also said many times that the first thing we all hear in the first class we take is: "if you can be happy doing anything else, do it."  we don't work in this industry because it makes us happy. we work in this industry because we couldn't be happy doing anything else. it's really a sickness. if you have a normal job, if you are happy doing anything else, you should consider yourself lucky.

as a theatre addict, i knew i had to do it - i had to be involved in this business. i first found my way in as an actor when i didn't know there were other options for me. later i found stage management, which i loved and will always consider myself to be a part of (i now say i'm a recovering stage manager. just like an alcoholic, i'll never stop being one, i just don't actively do it anymore). then came marketing and now producing.  i like producing a lot, i think it's one that could stick for a while, particularly at my current company because i adore it.

missing in all of this, though, were your typically awarded categories of theatrical employment (with the possible exception of producing but i've never had a real yen to do that on the broadway level).  i was a terrible actor. i can't draw or design to save myself.  i thought maybe i wanted to be a director at some point but that was a fleeting goal at best.  i've never been particularly compelled to write a play.  i was always much more drawn to the behind the scenes work. being a part of it without being in the spotlight.

what i'm saying is that "attending the tony awards" was not a dream i ever had because i didn't know to dream for it.

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i'm a stranger here myself

i would like to introduce myself.

now, you may be thinking: "um, i know you. i've known you for xx years (that is meant for you to fill in the appropriate number of years. not 20 in roman numerals. because that would be sort of weird for your inner monologue to speak in roman numerals. not that i judge. party on)."

so yes, introductions seem unnecessary.  but i've been thinking lately how much of my life i have spent feeling on the outside of things.  now, i want to be abundantly clear at this juncture that this entry does not, at any time or any way devolve into "whoa is parsnip" (a fairly ambitious claim given that i haven't written it yet. but that's how confident i am, for you).  i am surrounded by so many truly amazing people (you!) that i really have more than my fair share. in fact, if i were truly charitable, i would give some of them back. but i won't.

no, this is not a exercise in how deeply unfortunate my life is because no one understands me. it's more about how we are perceived vis a vis what we think we're putting out there.

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spoiler alert

a friend of mine from undergrad had a great facebook status message today:

And thus in 2013, the second American Civil War was caused not by divisive politics or beliefs, but by the rift between those who posted Game of Thrones spoilers on Facebook, and those that did not see the episode when it aired.

i did not watch "game of thrones," (i'm pretending, mostly to myself, that i'm going to finish the first book) but now, thanks to social media, i know the fate of at least 2 characters who, given the place i am at in the book, i knew to be very much alive.  not that finding this out is some sort of devastating blow, but upon reading people's reactions last night, i did think, "well, guess i know what happens in the 3rd book now."

this leads to sort of an interesting question of the nature of being "spoiled" on entertainment, especially in today's world of time-shifting, netflix and media that you can always come back to.

please note: after the jump, i will discuss spoilers concerning the past of don draper on "mad men." if you have managed to avoid hearing anything about this character, 1. i want to know how and 2. you may want to avoid.