one of the best days of my whole life.

all throughout my childhood i was a compulsive lister. i don't think much has changed. i was constantly revising lists: in my head, in my diary, on scraps of paper and on chalkboards. i loved planners and pocket notebooks and post-it notes, and have written myself at least one daily 'to-do' list since i was about twelve. (i used to include 'wake up' every morning!) the back of my first diary--pink with ballet slippers, and my name in stickers-- held a running list of 'best friends' that is hilarious too look at, both for the ridiculous reasons i crossed people off the list, only to add them back on, and for the fact that the word 'best' didn't seem to limit my quantity! 12 best friends, really?

one of my mental lists through my growing up years was that of the 'best days of my whole life'. some were very specific events--one particular Palm Sunday in which i felt very grown up, my eighth and ninth birthdays, the day my brother and i filled up a top hat with snow and made beautiful 'snow cake', some family vacations, a 24 hour period i spent exclusively painting as a freshman in college, a very hilarious fancy dinner in which my sister katie and i accidentally got drunk... there are too many to count.

today was one of the best days of my life, despite being entirely solitary and without much to speficically define it. i suppose i will just list everything, in keeping with the theme!

• woke up (without an alarm) to good weather
• spent a lovely almost-hour talking to my littlest sister on the phone (SHE called ME! so nice!)
• cinnamon toast and coffee
• did the underpainting for something new i am working on (mother's day!)
• showered, got dressed in the new ($20) Audrey Hepburn pants i bought yesterday (sorry, it's a cellphone picture)

• lunch on my sun deck, pretending i was on an enormous cruise ship (delicious egg salad and iced tea!)

• read C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves: Friendship
  

and in an hour i will finish it off with Mass. the best.

-papermoon

grilled brie sandwich.

oh my... how is it that this delicious thought never occurred to me until now?

i love grilled cheese and most people do. i pretended not to for a long time because i thought it was uncouth to enjoy fattening food. i was a lame-o. in any case, it's delicious. weekend anna and i like the grilled cheese at twin anchors* best, if we're eating out--it's ridiculous, you should eat it. but today i was so inspired and i will tell you why.

duh! half the goodness of grilled cheese is how fried and buttery (or margarine-y) it is, right? let's not kid ourselves. i don't even profess to like fried food that much--i am not one of those people who thinks the one way to make something better is to fry it up--but when it comes to something like grilled cheese the whole point is the greasy goodness. usually, grilled cheese is made of some kind of pathetic cheese like american, since the point isn't delicious cheese, but a gooey, greasy mess.

but today all i wanted to do was poke a fork into the brie i had in the fridge, cut into the wrong way and do away with the rind, and spread it like butter on bread. and that's when it occured to me! i could make a lethal grilled cheese! i have made creamed cheese grilled cheese before (awesome) and i loved the way the spreadable cheese made for a hot, thin sandwich. brie had the same effect. and for the greased up outside of the sandwich, i mixed margarine and MORE brie.

this is the most delicious heart attack i have ever had. if i hadn't eaten the whole thing in under a minute, i would post a picture. please, go make one now.

-papermoon


* twin anchors is doubly awesome because it's where return to me is filmed. which is NOT cheesy, and is probably the second best chick flick with bonnie hunt in it ever. the first is obviously only you. seriously. cinematic achievement.

HEY ANNA: "bonnie hunt... lives... in... chicago. search!" haha.