Every story has a beginning. This one starts at 4:38am on Wednesday, January 20, 2010. My mom’s 62nd birthday and the day my alarm was scheduled to ring at 5:15 so I could make a 6:15 client strategy meeting.

An idea formed, one distinct and meaningful. I want to make a movie. It solidified into a working title: Trek: An Obscure (Love) Story. And rough opening and closing sequences. And select potential songs for the soundtrack…

The Legends’ “Call It Ours”
Broken Social Scene’s “Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl”
Something by Explosions in the Sky
Page France’s “Chariot”

The task is at hand. I now must figure out how to take two seemingly average but truly under-extraordinary characters from their humble, self-involved dorky high school lives, have them meet, begin to fall in love, and share their first kiss atop a mountain at sunset.

This could get interesting.

The Naan bread didn’t happen. Andi was a bit concerned about our ability to use the fairly large container of yogurt I picked up for the bread, and we instead decided to clean the fridge. This led to a new goal: keep an eye on what I buy at the grocery store and how much I spend. Why? We waste a lot. Our once full fridge is now a bit lonely.

Finance. It’s been rough the past few months and I’ve had to dip into my savings quite a bit more than I expected. But things are going to turn around and with some budgeting tools I’ve thrown together, I’m watching my spending like a hawk. My grocery budget for the month is $200, and my shopping is $300. Both budgets have been sliced in half compared to what they were last month.

One fact has become blatantly clear. Previously: Unsustainable.

Now it is time to change.

There are times when nothing is more tantalizing than a scalding hot bubble bath. Now is one of those times.

There’s a chill in the air; the world outside is a dreary, drizzly overcast. And I can think of nothing better than drawing a hot bath, using some of that Luxury Bubble Bath that Andi picked up for me this past Christmas at Bath And Body Works, and watching the last disc of Chuck: Season 1.

When I get out: time to make homemade gluten-free Naan bread.

So here’s the plan. Thanks to the New Year holiday, I still have two days of weekend left; perfect time to begin improving my cooking skills while listening to some new tunes. On the playlist for next week and the near future are several videos and artists passed along by Chris of Series Two Records and the new Beach House album on Sub Pop (expect coverage of all on FensePost soon).

I’m a bit hungry tonight and because I haven’t really eaten too much today and I’m thinking about something hearty. Looking through 1,000 Gluten-Free Recipes by Carol Fenster, I quickly picked out a favorite: carbs. More specifically, Naan bread. The recipe doesn’t look too difficult. Now I just need a complimentary curry recipe to add to it. Maybe I’ll just swing by the Co-Op tomorrow and pick up a curry sauce for dipping. Or I’ll find a good recipe to make curry on my own… if I feel real daring.

So again, this thing hasn’t really gone far. I think it’s time to re-evaluate the direction. There are a few reasons to the failure.

1. Lack of an Audience: I haven’t felt comfortable with what I was writing to really make it public. It was too personal; at times too risque. To make it public in today’s world means to promote it in other social arenas, like on Facebook and via Twitter. And because being public is what blogging is all about, the lack of an audience has thus depleted any motivation I may have had initially.

2. No Strategy: For a venture such as this to be successful, having parameters means defining an audience, developing a strategy, and carrying it to fruition. There’s an old marketing phrase (at least I believe it’s an old marketing saying) that goes: You Can’t Be Everything To Everyone.

3. Abundantly Broad: Because I haven’t created parameters, there is no focus. In operating any business, promoting any product, you must (in a manner of speaking) create a unique niche. I have yet to find that niche. Now, the problem with doing this is that you can narrow it too much and thus doom yourself by overly limiting yourself.

Now that I’ve pinpointed my failure, it’s time to revisit the purpose of this blog and determine an appropriate direction. I have a few ideas - ultimately it could mean combining both of them, but I again do not want to be overly broad.

Both ideas stem around being an amateur, which works well with the title of the blog, On The Fense. Am I good? Do I suck? While I will always believe myself to fit the former, recounting my progressions at a particular cross section of… life… has potential appeal. Here are my thoughts:

Idea 1: Do It Yourself

Last year (wow, it’s not 2009 anymore!) I bought a house. It’s my first house and it shows a lot of potential. Potential both inside, outside, and in the yard. While I’ve already started, it could focus on taking a perfectly adequate but basic house and taking it to the next level. The problems are that projects take a long time and thus posts have the potential of being spread far and wide.

Idea 2: Food

I’m an amateur when it comes to cooking, but last week proved that I can at least make a mean enchilada sauce, even if it made the whole family sweat on Christmas eve. And my mom keeps the house well below a comfortable temperature. One of my two New Years 2010 resolutions is to lose 20 pounds, and part of that will be eating healthier, eating less, and cooking more. This could be a good step toward achieving that goal, and follow my passion for food and cooking.

If you have a thought, let me know. While the latter may sound a bit too much like that recent film Julie and Julia (or is it Julia and Julie?), I am leaning in that direction. Another item that makes me lean that way is Andi’s love for retro cookbooks. It might be fun to highlight a wild book from the 1940s, take a recipe from it, and make it our own.

OK - I think I’ve made up my mind. I will take it in the food direction. Andi and I need some new meals anyway, and this will give us a chance to change things up a bit. One key: she’s gluten intolerant, so things might get interesting.

Merry Christmas. Last night we made enchiladas and by happy mistake we had no sauce, so I had to make it from scratch with no recipe. Who knew there was a difference between chili pepper and chili powder!? It ended up being quite a bit hotter than anticipated. Luckily we caught it early and were able to cut down on the heat. Slightly.

This morning I made up some powders to make my homemade sauce when i return home. The good news is that it is gluten-free so Andi can have some (if I can create a mild recipe).

Maybe one of these days I’ll post the recipe…. Or at least how to make it using my special enchilada powder.

I’ve noticed something of late. I have a hard time truly sitting down and reading something… anything, be it a blog post or a book or whatever. But I am never short on words to write. Nor do I have problems reading my own writing, as I could spend an hour living vicariously through my own past.

I call it “Narcissism of Words” but it could also be a more modern form of attention deficit disorder. Simply put, there’s no deadline in reading my own work and there’s no need to remember what was read as, well, I’ve read it — and experienced it — all before.

So, being a modern socialite (i.e. the hermit who primarily lives in social media), I can listen to music and watch television as I read my own words.

It makes me wonder if others who blog have a similar affliction. I don’t truly read others’ writing, I peruse it in the same way I would pour over records at my favorite record shop. I grab a snippet of information here, glean an idea or thought from there, see a cool image in another location, and ultimately close my MacBook satisfied and satiated.

Time for bed.

Our cats, meaning Sara and Thundercleese, enjoy looking out the window. Since moving into our Mount Vernon home, they have become smitten with the living room windows, of which the blinds are often shut. Thus they twist and bend the flimsy plastic blinds and torment me so…

So today I decided to do something about it.

Andi and I ran off to Target and picked up two brand new curtain rods and two rich brown sets of curtains. And I attempted to hang them. But I ran into three issues. The list begins there:

Problem 1: Misguided Placement. Andi said she didn’t like them to rest too high so I placed the first rod holder in line with the top of the window frame. Oops, too low. This rod has three holders including one for the middle.

Fix: I now have a few extra holes in my wall.

Problem 2: Jammed Drill. Driving a screw straight into drywall can be downright nasty without “lubing” it up first by drilling a small hole where its home will soon be. But in my back and forths between the drillbit and the screwdriver, one of them got stuck. Despite my most concentrated efforts and giving my weak arm muscled more of a workout than they’ve had in years, the damn thing wouldn’t budge.

Fix: Sometimes you just gotta whack stuff with a mallet.

Problem 3: Stumpy Rod. Guess size does matter. We opted for a shorter rod for the shorter window. We were short four inches.

Fix: None yet.

I was really looking forward to getting those things up. It just doesn’t feel right hanging one while the other must wait, so Andi is planning to pick up a larger rod tomorrow so we can finish the project.

Our travels also took us to Costco where I purchased my first true vacuum cleaner. It’s upright and sucks real hard; that’s a good thing. It boasts being perfect for those with dogs and cats. After one sweep of the house, we had to empty the bin as it was full. Then again it’s the first I’ve swept since moving in (yeah, I know, I really hope my mother doesn’t read this) back in mid May. Ouch.

Exhaustion, why are you trying to be my best friend?
Coffee, why are you deserting me?

It’s only 10:30PM.

OK, so I discovered a new miniseries today called Ctrl and it is absolutely brilliant. That link goes directly to the Hulu page, where you can (as of the publishing of this post) view the first six episodes. It features Arrested Development’s Tony Hale, who played the panic-attack-stricken Buster Bluth, as the office nerd.

An incident occurs that changes his life forever. It’s witty and hysterical, and unfortunately each episode is less than eight minutes long.

Here’s an embed of the first for your enjoyment: