Spring Awakening is a famous pre-expressionist German play by Frank Wedekind, revolving around the onset of puberty among some schoolchildren in a deeply repressed 19th Century community. It has a new life as a somewhat simplified or dumbed-down Broadway musical. Since I first read the text about a decade ago in College I've been borrowing the title, which has an appealing lyrical quality, as a shorthand for the semi-cyclical (re)emergence of my lust for life.

It is the vernal time again, and Humboldt County isn't disappointing. The sun is shining, and last night I went out to a kick-off party for our nascent roller-derby league. Our friend Hanna is participating (around her regular gig down in SF learning to tattoo; that's dedication) and there are a bunch of other good second-degree connections. The place was loud and full of ruckus, rock bands and dance-teams, a silent auction of art, desserts and donated items. With a minor amount of cronyism and a little but of quick bargaining, we managed to score a truly atrocious/awesome USA USA USA blanket: the flag, the eagle and a FDNY truck marked 911. Made in Korea. Amazing.

It was the first night of spring and also the full moon, the club chock full of attractive people with ambiguous sexual agendas. Mine was/is rather nonexistent. Much as I relish the return of the sun and the verdant fertility on display all around me, to-date I'm personally untouched. I'm sure that if I gave myself enough rope to get all boozed-up and wild like the old days there's an odds-on chance I could hang myself sufficiently well to at least make out with someone. It's an occasionally appealing thought, but it hasn't happened.

We billed our housewarming party as an opportunity to join us in "staging the end of our youth." The crowd was smallish but high quality, and packed dense enough to make the occupied rooms seem full. Mix in a little SparksPlus, and it felt just about right.

Most importantly, a representative social network sample was achieved: academics from Berkeley, drupal developers from the Mission, lawyers from all over, Sixto, friends from Humboldt county and Oregon, and perhaps best of all Nick's cousin in a positively outlandish basketball outfit rolling in and supervising the cooking of much bacon. Serious meatboxing. The mix works, and there will be dinner parties to come in the same vein.

Later in the evening, when things got whittled down to the inner circle, the truly regressive behavior began to emerge. There was some unsupervised mixed-martial arts in the living room, and in the back yard the great ritual of "cutting beers in half with a machete." What started as a feat of immaturity is one cycle away from tradition.

I don't know what our neighbors thought about this, especially as it was 3am and things eventually moved on from cans to bottles, which is a lot less safe and a lot more messy; but we cleaned things up good in the morning, and it probably won't happen again soon. Hopefully there are no hard feelings.

I've been bored with politics and focusing on other things lately. The primaries are a drone for the most part. This, however, deserves attention.

House Democrats stood strong against immunity for Telecom companies that were helping with illegal wiretaps, and established meaningful oversight for domestic survalence going forward. Glenn Greewald explains:

bq. As impressive as the House vote itself was, more impressive still was the floor debate which preceded it. I can't recall ever watching a debate on the floor of either House of Congress that I found even remotely impressive -- until today. One Democrat after the next -- of all stripes -- delivered impassioned, defiant speeches in defense of the rule of law, oversight on presidential eavesdropping, and safeguards on government spying. They swatted away the GOP's fear-mongering claims with the dismissive contempt such tactics deserve, rejecting the principle that has predominated political debate in this country since 9/11: that the threat of the Terrorists means we must live under the rule of an omnipotent President and a dismantled constitutional framework.

This is a win for justice, but it's all the more exciting in that it happened because Democrats (including a number of newbies) broke through the miazma of "war on terra" fear. Nice work. Feels good, don't it? Winning is fun! Slapping down a shitty president with bad ideas is cool! Let's do more like this!

So after we got back from the show -- which we left a little too quickly, forgetting my credit card and possibly a couple phone numbers from dancefloor neighbors -- we faced the consequences of a crisis of collective action: "bachelor fridge" presented a problem.

We'd shouted and clapped and stomped and sang along with the band for a good hour and a half, which works up a powerful appetite, but we returned home with nothing to eat other than a small amount of (delicious) Indian food from 'round the corner, which was quickly consumed.

Crisis stimulates the creative imagination, so I invented some Mexican crepes, basically:

• Flour tortillas
• Peanut butter
• Cream cheese
• Butter (just a bit)
• Jam (just a bit)

Make up your tortillas with the PB and CC, folded over like quesadillas and then fried in a cast iron skillet with a little butter, flipping two or three times. Serve with a spoonful of jam for dipping.

It's not a meal by any stretch of the imagination -- sort of the culinary equivalent to pornography, really -- but for that kind of moment it's perhaps the right kind of food. Certainly hit the spot after a jumpin' night out.

I'm starting to get a good feeling for things going forward. Change has been needed for some time, but I'm beginning to grasp the specifics, the habits of action to change, cease, institute, etc.

More on all this later, I'm sure. But I figured I'd share the recipe.