Portrait of The Artist in the Moment

100% the best cheap kitchen tool I've bought in a decade is the corn stripper. Game Changer, for real. As long as you have a reasonable degree of wrist mobility, you can strip the kernels off an ear of corn in under 30 seconds, no particular arm strength or unwise relationship with knives required. Get a cheap bag of corn and reduce it to a giant pile of fresh corn in minutes. Slow roast that shit, with or without tossing it with spices. Pan fry it if it's time-sensitive. Eat it warm. Mix it into some cheap salsa. Toss it with a can of black beans. Make a little dressing with mayo and sour cream, it'll melt down when you mix it with the warm corn. You like jalapeño? Go nuts. I'm eating it right now mixed into some chorizo on tortilla chips. Do whatever the fuck you want with it! You made it from Fresh Summer Ingredients. Maybe you bought those ingredients at a fuckin farmer's market, or by the side of the road, I don't know where you live. But you made it! Throw it in a soup. In tacos. Add it to your boxed cornbread mix. Corn freezes so, so well! It can all be a part of your life, and a $5 plastic thingamabob removes basically all structural obstacles between you and corn. Amaze amaze amaze.

the best fanfiction you've ever read was written by a woman in her 40s before she made dinner for her kids. it was written by a teenager after school when they should've been studying for a history test. and a barista came up with the idea while they cleaned the espresso machine and busser fact-checked it on their break and the post-doc edited between writing grant proposals and the nurse apologized for typos in the notes after a long shift and behind every drabble and one-shot and multi-chapter fic there is a person with a wonderful and interesting and chaotic life and it is such a privilege that we get to be a part of it because they decided to do this thing we all share, for fun.