I have no idea how this specific version ended up being the best fried rice I’ve ever made. It’s literally just cleaning out the bits and bobs of vegetables I collect in my freezer.
This is an almost or entirely shelf stable recipe that makes a hearty soup. Being shelf-stable, it’s a good one to keep in case of sudden snow or storm days, or when the paycheck just won’t stretch.
It takes opening some cans and making sure nothing scorches.
Originally a Twitter thread in 2019. Some additions and clean-up, and updating.
I keep lists of my DNF (did not finish) reads. I noted a pattern forming in the last three months and it’s got me thinking, but as usual, please consider it a workshop piece, a first draft.
We’re creatives. We tend to be well tuned to the feelings of others. For the past decade, there’s been a whole WHACK of a lot…
Frogs fall out of my mouth when I talk. Toads, too.
It used to be a problem.
There was an incident when I was young and cross and fed up with parental expectations. My sister, who is the Good One, has gold fall from her lips, and since I could not be her, I had to go a different way.
So I got frogs. It happens.
“You’ll grow into it,” the fairy godmother said. “Some curses have cloth-of-gold linings.” She considered this, and her finger drifted to her lower lip, the way it did when she was forgetting things. “Mind you, some curses just grind you down and leave you broken. Some blessings do that too, though. Hmm. What was I saying?”
I spent a lot of time not talking. I got a slate and wrote things down. It was hard at first, but I hated to drop the frogs in the middle of the road. They got hit by cars, or dried out, miles away from their damp little homes.
Toads were easier. Toads are tough. After awhile, I learned to feel when a word was a toad and not a frog. I could roll the word around on my tongue and get the flavor before I spoke it. Toad words were drier. Desiccated is a toad word. So is crisp and crisis and obligation. So are elegant and matchstick.
Frog words were a bit more varied. Murky. Purple. Swinging. Jazz.
I practiced in the field behind the house, speaking words over and over, sending small creatures hopping into the evening. I learned to speak some words as either toads or frogs. It’s all in the delivery.
Love is a frog word, if spoken earnestly, and a toad word if spoken sarcastically. Frogs are not good at sarcasm.
Toads are masters of it.
I learned one day that the amphibians are going extinct all over the world, that some of them are vanishing. You go to ponds that should be full of frogs and find them silent. There are a hundred things responsible—fungus and pesticides and acid rain.
When I heard this, I cried “What!?” so loudly that an adult African bullfrog fell from my lips and I had to catch it. It weighed as much as a small cat. I took it to the pet store and spun them a lie in writing about my cousin going off to college and leaving the frog behind.
I brooded about frogs for weeks after that, and then eventually, I decided to do something about it.
I cannot fix the things that kill them. It would take an army of fairy godmothers, and mine retired long ago. Now she goes on long cruises and spreads her wings out across the deck chairs.
But I can make more.
I had to get a field guide at first. It was a long process. Say a word and catch it, check the field marks. Most words turn to bronze frogs if I am not paying attention.
Poison arrow frogs make my lips go numb. I can only do a few of those a day. I go through a lot of chapstick.
It is a holding action I am fighting, nothing more. I go to vernal pools and whisper sonnets that turn into wood frogs. I say the words squeak and squill and spring peepers skitter away into the trees. They begin singing almost the moment they emerge.
I read long legal documents to a growing audience of Fowler’s toads, who blink their goggling eyes up at me. (I wish I could do salamanders. I would read Clive Barker novels aloud and seed the streams with efts and hellbenders. I would fly to Mexico and read love poems in another language to restore the axolotl. Alas, it’s frogs and toads and nothing more. We make do.)
The woods behind my house are full of singing. The neighbors either learn to love it or move away.
My sister—the one who speaks gold and diamonds—funds my travels. She speaks less than I do, but for me and my amphibian friends, she will vomit rubies and sapphires. I am grateful.
I am practicing reading modernist revolutionary poetry aloud. My accent is atrocious. Still, a day will come when the Panamanian golden frog will tumble from my lips, and I will catch it and hold it, and whatever word I spoke, I’ll say again and again, until I stand at the center of a sea of yellow skins, and make from my curse at last a cloth of gold.
Terri Windling posted recently about the old fairy tale of frogs falling from a girl’s lips, and I started thinking about what I’d do if that happened to me, and…well…
Alright are you DUMMY THICC with POWERFUL THIGHS that keep DESTROYING YOUR JEANS? Are you super fucking broke and can’t afford new clothes? Would you rather not contribute to disposable fashion, one of the MOST UNETHICAL industries of the modern age, on which I have many thoughts? I’m here to show you how to keep your pants on unnatural life support until they literally disintegrate off your legs.
You’ll need some basic sewing skills and supplies. If you don’t have a sewing machine, jump to the end, I’ll add an epilogue just for you.
Step one: look at this disgrace. How did this even happen. What was I doing.
Now you don’t need to do this next bit, especially if it’s a less extensive repair, but I’m going to show you how to make a nice pattern for this, if you like nice patterns.
Turn one leg inside out and put it into the other, so you can see the tear.
Put a piece of paper on the area and trace around the hole - it’ll take some guesswork, but you can figure it out. You want it big enough to cover the hole, and extending far enough from it that you aren’t just sewing into places where the fabric is worn super thing. I like to stop at the crotch and inner leg seams, both because the pants are shaped there so it’s hard to get a patch to span it without something puckering, and because it’s a good sturdy anchor to sew to. Mine looks like this. Yours will…probably be smaller.
Now cut that shape out of some fabric. I cut two, because I have similarly shaped holes on both sides. You do NOT need to add seam allowance. For the fabric, I recommend cotton twill or canvas (not treated canvas, you don’t want anything plasticky on your crotch). Twill is what most casual pants are made of (denim is a kind of twill). Canvas is the same but heavier. You’ll want something that roughly matches the color of your pants, obviously. I did not have this. I decided I do not care. My pants will look DUMB but I am a GOBLIN.
I serged the edges of mine (because I’m the kind of goblin with a SERGER but not TAN FABRIC?? apparently) but that’s not necessary. Turn your pants inside out and pin the patch in (one at a time, if you’re doing multiple). Make sure the patch lies completely flat against the pants fabric, and isn’t bunching or bubbling.
Now shove it under the sewing machine and stitch around the edge. I recommend sewing right on top of the existing seams where you can, since the pants are sturdy there. The tricky thing is not accidentally catching other parts of the pants while you’re sewing around the patch, but you can do it, I believe in you. If you mess up, just seam rip that bit and try again.
Once the patch(es) are in, turn them right side out. The holes are covered, but there’s a bunch of loose, ragged fabric flapping around that’s just going to keep getting shredded.
So take it back to the sewing machine, and just…sew everywhere. Start at the edge and make a big spiral to the center. Or make a bunch of parallel lines. Or start wherever you want and just go wild. But fill the patch with stitching everywhere there are two layers of fabric.
This not only keeps the layers together but REINFORCES them, so your sad pants will be STRONGER THAN EVER. It’ll look like this, and you’ll be like “ew, everybody’s going to see my butt stitching.”
But they won’t. Trust me. They won’t. Because it’s all up in your butt crack, and if they’re looking close enough you’re legally allowed to kick them. Even with my dumbass fabric choices, you can’t see it at all from the front (enjoy weird blurry shot of my crotch).
And you can barely see it from the back.
AND NOW YOU CAN WEAR YOU FAVORITE PANTS, AND NEVER BUY NEW CLOTHES EVER AGAIN. I think I’ve done this to EVERY pair of pants I wear on a regular basis. Some MULTIPLE TIMES.
My note for people without a sewing machine: you can do this by hand, it’ll just take longer. Use sturdy thread and sew with a prick stitch (or pick stitch, depending on who you ask). That means that when the thread is on the outside of the fabric, make the stitches absolutely tiny. That leaves less surface area to be abraided by the aforementioned slapping of your thighs. It also looks nicer - so I would do that if you’re fixing some really nice dress pants whether you’ve got a sewing machine or not. This is what a prick stitch looks like on the outside.
If you’re doing it by hand, and if you want extra reinforcement, I’d also recommend getting some Heat ‘n Bond (or Wonder Under, etc, there are a few different brands, any permanent iron-on adhesive will work) and affixing the patches with that first. I only didn’t do that because I don’t have any. I would not recommend putting the patches in ONLY with iron-on adhesive, even though the manufacturers say it will work. It’s not strong enough for your powerful thighs.
Now go. Stop buying pants. End the disposable fashion machine. The revolution starts with your ass.
You can also, if you are feeling fancy, sew a layer of patch to the outside as well, which you can style in any fashion you choose since it is not doing anything structural but just covering up the ratty edges.
Also if one pair of pants gets past the point of no return, you can save the still-good parts to fix other pants.
If you can use but do not have a sewing machine many libraries or community centers have them to either use there or loan out. Find out if your town has this, if none of your friends has a machine. Or do handsewing.
This came across my Pinterest (that I almost never use, but which keeps sending me “Look!” emails)… all this time later.
i’m evolved i think pda is actually a good and fine thing even when straight people do it but especially when gay people do. it’s nice to see love in public don’t be a hater grab a loved one and smooch them in line for your pretzel bites or something
i also resent the way evangelical christianity tries to get rid of the inherent unknowability embedded in any text that ancient.
like no this was not written for you specifically as a 21st century white american, it was written for an audience with nothing to do with you in a cultural context we Literally Cannot fully understand. Just like any historical text some meaning will UNAVOIDABLY be lost just through the passage of time. please get comfortable with ambiguity and with not knowing things and with not being the main character of the universe. Your approach to History makes me cringe
Yes we need more chaste twee baby gay romances like heartstopper and yes we also need more shows where men fuck raw to express their love for one another like Élite and yes we need more toxic gays having hate sex like Interview with the Vampire and yes we need more incidental gay characters like the dads in cartoons like Owl House.
It’s not a competition! It’s a hoard and I’m like a gay little Smaug.
the normalization of porn in mainstream media is a weird take to have
Normalization of gay desire and yes, even gay sex, is paramount to gay liberation actually.
Was Buffy the Vampire Slayer normalizing porn in mainstream media when Spike and Buffy literally fucked a house down on top of themselves?
Was Grey’s Anatomy normalizing porn in mainstream media when Meredith and Derek had sex in a bar the night they met, and Derek woke up on her living room floor sans pants?
The OP did not say “we need more shows where men fuck raw to express their love for one another and also I get to see dick and balls and it should be on the Disney Channel.” If you’re cool with het couples having network-TV-level exposed sex, then why are gay couples doing the same “normalizing porn”?
And if you want to see dick and balls, or bush and labia, that’s cool too. But no one is saying that should be on CBS at eight.
