I Made a Wish On a Shooting Star and I Think That Might Be My Religion

Plus musings on salad and playing violin

A Shooting Star

A Couple of nights ago I was driving when I saw a mysterious sight in the heavens. An extraordinarily bright blue-green ball of light tore downward through the sky. It took me a second to process what I was seeing. My first thought was that I was witnessing some kind of aircraft exploding and hurtling towards the ground, a horrifying thought. By the time it winked out sight and back to darkness I realized I had just observed one of the universe’s most magical phenomena: a shooting star! I gave myself all of about .25 seconds to revel in the wonder of the cosmos before panic set in. I needed to make a wish FAST.

I don’t know who made the rules of shooting star wish making, but they are known to me inherently: u better make a wish within like 5 seconds and it better be made with utmost reverence, intention, and solemnity as befits the auspices of the divine shooting star wish granting goddesses. I panicked and wished for TWO BIG THINGS, and then I panicked even more that I had been greedy and probably cancelled the magic of my wish(es). (shooting stars hate the avaricious). As scared as I am that I fumbled my big wish opportunity, I dare not further risk compromising the magycks by sharing with you or anyone what I wished for. (RULE NUMBER ONE FOR ALL WISH MAKING).

After I determined that I had spent enough time in PWC (post-wish contemplation) I had to laugh at myself. The human experience is so funny. If I were to think about the practice of making a wish on a shooting star on any other day, I’d think of it as something cute, benign, an unserious little superstitious ritual we’ve learned to do culturally. But when I am reminded of the vastness of the universe and am made to feel like a grain of sand in the desert as a fireball streams through the night sky above me, the magic is tangible, and it would be foolish to deny its power.

Salad is So Back

I go through food phases and I tend to go all in on whatever it is I’m fixated on. Mostly I just find it easier to have a habit of eating the same things day to day, I like not having to make constant decisions about what I eat, and lately I tend to go for things that I can make very quickly or in advance. I used to be much more of a salad girly, and have had periods of making and eating salads every day, but for the past year I’ve completely lost the habit. A couple of reasons I am making less salads are that it is a lot of work to prepare all the ingredients and also sometimes weeks go by where I can’t find a single box/bag of greens at the grocery store that doesn’t have a slimy leaf in it and if there’s even one slimy leaf I don’t want it.

Out of curiosity I checked out the arugula at my grocery store last week and I was pleasantly surprised that it was fresh and verdant, not a bit of slime, and we were instantly so back. Here’s everything that went in my salad:

• Arugula (the chicest green)

• pumpkin seeds (a chic crunch) I would have gone with walnuts which I think are maybe chicer and more delicious but they were sold out

• gorgonzola (stinky but so chic)

• like 1-2 diced sun dried tomatoes (medium chic)

• like 3 diced green olives (classically chic)

• 2 coined radishes (undeniably chic)

• Rotisserie Chicken (normal)

• red onion (chic for an onion)

I know I’m talking a big game about how chic all my salad ingredients (treasures) are, but this is really a build up to tell you what’s in my dressing, the most sickeningly chic absolutely just oozing cool girl energy ingredient of all. Please let me put you on to: Pumpkin Oil. I got pumpkin-oil-pilled when I picked up my first bottle at Dolac market while living in Zagreb, Croatia (chic I know) at the recommendation of my Croatian bestie Anna. The flavor is difficult to compare to anything else, it is incredibly savory, flavorful, unique, and delicious. It looks dark brown when you pour it out of the bottle, but as soon as you mix it up with anything else it reveals itself to be the most beautiful rich deep dark and delicious green color.

For my dressing I mix together about:

• 2 tbsp pumpkin oil

• 1 tbsp spicy mustard

• a few squirts sriracha

Enjoy.

even chic eaten out of tupperware in my car

Is it possible for me to be LARPing as a violinist while also actually professionally playing the violin?

I have had a lot of gigs playing with regional symphonies around Illinois the past month. It’s something I really love doing, and I’m good at it. I’m so used to performing that I take it for granted that I work as a professional musician, but occasionally it hits me that to be good enough at a musical instrument to get paid to play classical music is a rare and impressive skill. Sometimes playing with a symphony just feels like showing up to do any other kind of job, and other times I become so lost in my own enjoyment of the music that I can’t help but start to feel a fantasy. This weekend I played Beethoven’s 6th Symphony, a piece I’ve performed multiple times, and if you asked me on any given day I wouldn’t say I feel strongly about it, and yet in the concert I found myself enchanted and enraptured. Midway through the piece I realized that I was really indulging in the music, hyper focused, and playing with all the beauty and elegance I could muster, and here’s where I started LARPing as a violinist rather than just being one. In case you don’t know, LARPing is Live Action Role Playing, you know like going to an anime convention dressed as and pretending to be your favorite cartoon character, or acting like a tavern wench at the Renaissance Faire.

How can I LARP as something I am? Let me tell u. In the midst of my great enjoyment of the performance I thought, “wow I’m doing a good job,” and then I thought, “wow I bet I look sooo violinist-y to the audience right now,” and then I pictured how I must look performing with such precision and passion from the audience’s point of view and wow I have to say I looked rlly good playing violin in a tuxedo. With that image of myself in mind, I thought, “How can I make myself appear even more poised and elegant and like a serious violinist to the audience?” and I sat up even straighter and made sure my aura really exuded classical-era pastoral themed master work symphony professional violinist incredibly passionate yet also cool and unbothered highly skilled exceptionally trained diva. I can’t tell you what I did exactly to shift the aura in that direction but just know that I did, ok? A lot of people were saying so.

will duck lips photos ever release their grasp on me? no. </3

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