Recently, I've begun to cook dishes while I'm visiting my parents. Before, I would either slack or perform prep cook duties during my stays. Since my cooking class, I've been slowly taking on more meal responsibilities. My culinary endeavours in the foreign kitchen have so far been limited to pan-seared scallops with a classic beurre blanc sauce, but I've offered to bring a squash cream soup for Turkey Day, and I'm contemplating bringing a pithivier as well.

In retrospect, I probably could've helped out more earlier. However, I think a combination of awe, lack of confidence in my skills and general slothlikeness stopped me before. Now that I seem to have gotten past those things for the most part, I hope that one day, I'll be able to cook a full course meal that they'd be proud of.

It's been pretty quiet here. Things have happened, but I just haven't felt compelled to write in a very long time. I've just found it very hard to be creative when it has become very necessary to become a warm, living sofa statue for a few hours before going comatose. It's been like this for a long time, and I'm not sure if it's going to change anytime soon.

[For those of you not interested in navel-gazing, stop reading now]

I'm not sure if this dead period can be tied down to one specific reason. I believe that it's more a confluence of things conspiring against me. Work has been near-Sisyphean. I've totally fallen off the stay in shape bandwagon, having cancelled my unused health club membership. I even think the shorter days have had an effect: even though us cube prairie dogs don't get much outside time, not getting that one or two bright hours after work seems to be a real downer.

If I had to concisely say what I think is wrong, I would say "rut". Although I have grand visions and some intermediate term plans on where I want to be in future, I don't feel like making any headway towards them. I guess I need something more immediate and/or tangible to give me that little bit of hope to make it through.

I know this is all pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but I felt it would be good to get something out there to explain the silence, even if all it is is a vague "pity me" whine entry.

Anyway, hopefully I'll have more interesting posts in the future.