this, that and the other

next week school starts up again. i'm ready for it as working full time has been rather draining. lots of changes in the new year already. lots of goodbyes. it's bittersweet. regardless, i need to focus my brain energy on more fulfilling outlets - like writing. and learning.

also, planning a trip to new orleans in march, which i am looking forward to. i foresee lots of coffee and beignets and muffelata and crawfish. maybe only one of those is paleo. i've been a rather lazy cook this week. more braised cabbage and chicken sausage, some pilfered soup from work, taco salad. i have a nice roast chicken recipe i'm wanting to try, but have to find a iron skillet first. i was all excited about a trip to IKEA on monday, but didn't actually have a lot of success and felt overwhelmed by all the options. i believe douglas coupland calls it "option paralysis." arg.

while not officially a resolution, i did/do want to try and get outside my comfort zone more in this new year. so, saturday night finally ran out of excuses and went to the DNA lounge with t, rxs and jss. it's this dance club that does mash-ups on random saturday nights and i had been dreading going for-ever because i had built it up in my mind as this very large and overwhelming and intimidating place full of people that could...actually dance. but, it ended up being rather fun albeit full of very strange people and by midnight was a little too crowded for my taste. huzzah. fears conquered! the most disturbing moment came when one very odd man that was dancing by us, started to unzip his pants. our circle quickly became an arrow in the opposite direction, but EW. there was also random mute man and a german girl we ended up adopting into our circle for a bit. t assured me the clientele was not the norm, but i'm sticking to mowtown monday at the art bar.