I have nothing to say and I am saying it

it's not you, it's me

2008-03-24T22:34:00.001-04:00

So, yes, it's true. I've been trying to deny it for months. I thought if I didn't talk about it, it would go away and no one would have to know. But now I've realized that I've got to admit to what I've done. Got to stand on my own two feet. Take responsibility for my actions. I've made my bed and so...yes, folks, it's true: I've been cheating. On my blog. I'm ashamed to admit it, but it's been so wonderful I just can't keep quiet anymore. Since January, I've been working on a new blog, one that shares my interest in television and popular culture. I think we're running away together.

Okay, okay, I'll stop beating a dead metaphor. Let's just say that I've started a new blog about television, entitled Looking for Pleasure, and that I've been a bit distracted keeping up with the weekly updates (when I do actually keep up with the weekly updates). Check it out! Add to that other completely trivial matters like writing my dissertation and planning for my imminent move to Colorado and it's made for a busy semester. I haven't had tons of time to devote to this blog. But trust that I haven't forgotten and that I do intend to continue to update here as often as possible. This will always be my first blog. Nothing can change what we have.

On another very important note, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's movie Baby Mama is opening tomorrow night. Go. Enjoy.

reason number two to adore tina fey...and snl

2008-02-24T14:22:00.003-05:00

Check out MyDD (Direct Democracy) for a breakdown of SNL's brilliantly hilarious send-up of the Press's Obama-mania. (Edit: some of these videos may not work anymore because NBC had them taken off Youtube. Check out the SNL site on NBC.com though, as they seem to have a lot of the same clips there.

Also, Tina Fey provides us with an excellent new campaign slogan for Hillary: "Bitch is the new black!"

(if the embedded video doesn't work, try going to the SNL video page at nbc.com

one more reason to adore tina fey

2008-02-24T01:04:00.001-05:00

democratic primaries

2008-02-04T00:09:00.000-05:00

In case anyone cares, I want to officially announce my support of Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Primary. Right now, I don't have the energy for a long, drawn-out explanation (although you can find some compelling reasons here--this blogger feels a bit more vehement about Obama v. Clinton than I do, but they make some good points). In short, I think that Obama is mostly talk (inspiring, hopeful talk, but still talk) and no action, that Clinton's plans and policies are more viable, and that she has demonstrated a continued commitment to reform (especially in terms of health care). Obama hasn't had a chance to prove himself yet and so I have no idea what he is capable of, how he plans to execute his policies, or what he might do in office.

This is not to say that I don't think Obama could be good. I just think Clinton will be better.

Some moments of this campaign have caused both candidates to be shed in an unfavorable light (all the petty mud-slinging, etc., which somehow only Edwards--alas, poor Edwards--seemed to avoid); however, I am horrified by the things people have been saying about Clinton. Sexism in this country is so institutionalized that the media, campaigners, etc., can undermine Hillary Clinton in ways that are completely, insidiously sexist and yet manage to fly completely under the radar. It's incredibly frustrating.

Can we try to look beyond both race and gender and consider what the candidates actually stand for?

Whatever you do, just please VOTE on Tuesday (or whenever your state's primary is scheduled). Please.

kiwi

2008-01-23T11:13:00.000-05:00

This has been making its rounds on the Interwebs, so you may have seen it already, but I love it so much that I'm going to post it here. I'm torn between finding this ridiculously adorable and indescribably sad, but I've decided there's an element of uplift, too, and a profound message about following your dreams. And have I mentioned it's ridiculously adorable?

the capitol of the confederacy and mr. jefferson's university

2008-01-15T12:45:00.001-05:00

Alas, break is over and tomorrow I have to drive back to Rochester and start the business of being productive again. I realize that technically, since I am neither teaching nor taking any classes, I don't actually have to be back at any prescribed time or, in fact, do anything remotely useful now that the semester has officially begun. However, symbolically, the first day of classes signals that I need to get my nose back to the grindstone and write my dissertation. Sadly, it will not write itself. Plus, my cats and bird would be very unamused if I left them to starve.

Laments aside, I'm happy to say I've had a wonderful and relaxing time here with my parents, and had the good fortune of seeing several of my old professors (from both undergrad and from my master's program) and hanging out with some very good friends: EC and I got a chance to catch up and commiserate about grad school (though we did very little reminiscing of our middle-school-days, which is probably just as well); LR and I had a yummy dinner at an old haunt; I got to see my friend EB not once but twice and seeing her is always fabulous; I ran into an old friend AW, whom I hadn't seen in forever, out of the blue, and we both made vows to keep in better touch; and my friend LP and I had a lovely day in Richmond, the former Capitol of the Confederacy (not that I would consider that its primary selling point!), where we had two amazing meals and walked through a beautiful old cemetery as well as the requisite sightseeing and window shopping.

Restaurant-wise, if you're ever in Richmond, I highly recommend The Can Can Brasserie in Carytown, both for its ambiance and the quality of the food (I had the duck crepes and they were stellar), and The Hard Shell in Shockoe Slip for terrific seafood.

Dating back to 1928, the Byrd Theatre is a historic landmark in Richmond's Carytown area (on West Cary St.) and has a beautiful facade.

Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond dates back to the Civil War (founded 1847) and reminded me a bit of Mt. Hope Cemetery in Rochester which was opened in 1838. They're both full of beautiful old Victorian gravestones and Hollywood Cemetery is also home of an impressive stone pyramid in honor of Confederate Women (the second photo below)

Since returning from my day in Richmond, I've enjoyed quite a bit of free time and dancing (Argentine Tango and ballroom dance parties) with my parents. I've been trying to make the most of my break and, in that vein, the three of us managed to make it through the entire first season of 30 Rock in four evenings. I have to say that it was incredibly exciting to see my father jazzed about a television show. Getting him to watch television--especially something as mundane as a sitcom--is usually like pulling teeth. So, I was thrilled that he loved 30 Rock so much--yet another testament to Tina Fey's ineffable brilliance.

Speaking of Tina Fey, her alma mater is the same as mine (except I went to the University of Virginia for my Masters instead of my BA), and yesterday I spent a beautiful, crisp afternoon wandering around the UVa grounds, and meeting with two of my MA professors, one of whom can be credited with encouraging me to apply to UofR in the first place. Without him, I really can't tell what I'd be doing now or if I'd be so happy with my current course of study.

In any case, the sunny winter day afforded me some more opportunities to play with my new camera down in a relatively hidden amphitheater behind the theater building. I have no idea how this area is used (perhaps just as a practice field for various sports, judging by the soccer and lacrosse nets), but I think this may be the proposed site of the new art museum--although that's a proposal that's been in the works since 2002.

Walking around UVa yesterday allowed me an invaluable opportunity to think without the constant glow of my computer, the seduction of the interweb, the addiction to email. It's funny how you can forget what it's like to just go on a nice walk and sit and enjoy your surroundings. Granted, this is more difficult to do in Rochester in the winter, where being outside in January is not pleasant, but I think it's still feasible. So, a belated New Years resolution: to allow more time for simple pleasures without distractions. Don't get me wrong, I love technology. I love television. I love my computer. But sometimes it's good to just let those things go for an hour or two, just to wander.

one doodle that can't be un-did

2008-01-02T13:11:00.000-05:00

Just saw Juno with April and her mother yesterday and absolutely adored it. The first few minutes, I worried the film might overdo itself with its own quirkiness, but my fears were quickly allayed as I became hopelessly enthralled by the incredible Ellen Page (and a bevy of other exceedingly talented actors like Allison Janney, J.K. Simmons and Michael Cera; even Jennifer Garner impressed me in her role as the sentimental, slightly overbearing and barely-the-decent-side-of-desperate Vanessa). Page was truly phenomenal, striking a perfect balance in the character of Juno between wisdom beyond her years and the vital naiveta of adolescence, while also managing to embody a teenaged angst overlaid with snark and a charming wit.

a mini year-in-review

2008-01-01T18:57:00.000-05:00

Since April returned from her conference, I’ve been a little busy with family stuff and being social and all that jazz so haven’t had time for the seemingly obligatory New Years post. But now we’re sitting still for a few minutes, and I thought I’d take that time to post a little Year-in-Review...in the form of eight questions and answers:

1. What countries did you visit?
Canada, England, Germany

2. What states did you visit/drive through?
Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming

3. What was/were your biggest accomplishments?
Passing my qualifying exams in May (ABD, baby!) and receiving my 1st black belt certificate in November (I passed my black belt testing last year, but you don’t receive the certificate until you’ve trained for a full year as a black belt).

4. What was your most embarrassing moment?
Plant and pool-sitting for my professor for three weeks and turning her pool bright algae-green the day before she returned (it turned out to not be completely my fault, but I was still mortified).

5. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Hanging out with friends (though I did quite a bit of that). Reading.

6. Any new favorite television shows?
30 Rock (Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin are my heroes), Criminal Minds (it gives me nightmares, but I just can’t stay away from the compelling storylines and Paget Brewster) and Murder in Suburbia (even though it’s cheesy as heck and only lasted 12 episodes). I’m rooting for The Sarah Connor Chronices as my new favorite show of 2008, but only time (and the writer’s strike) will tell.

7. What was the best book you read?
A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

8. What was/were your favorite film(s) of this year?
Eastern Promises, in the drama category, and Lars and the Real Girl, in the comedy category; also, in the honorary category of not-the-best-film-but-I-loved-it-anyway:

The Brave One.

------------

We started off the New Year with a blast last night with an excellent dinner at a restaurant with April’s parents, brother and partner, and two friends of theirs, and then headed into the casino in the same hotel as the restaurant. April and I each brought $50 which we lost fairly quickly playing nickel slots. April’s mother, however, provided hours of entertainment as she proceeded to win what amounted to at least $1000 at a nickel slot machine. Minus the money she put in and the money she spent on our drinks, etc., she probably walked out of that casino when we left at 1am with a profit of $750! I was very impressed.

Her victorious mood was infectious, and she saw her winning streak as a good omen for the new year. When April asked what our losing streaks said about our prospects for 2008, I countered that $50 could hardly be considered a huge loss in the grand scheme of things and we shouldn’t read too much into it.

In lieu of resolutions, here’s what I took away from the evening: Know your limits and find enjoyment sharing in the triumphs of others.

And don’t leave things up to chance!

Happy New Year, everyone!

the proper use of down-time

2007-12-27T23:53:00.001-05:00

When the girlfriend is off at a conference and one is left alone between Christmas and New Years with her parents, what does one do with one's time? The correct answer should be that one uses all that free time to work on one's dissertation or, at the very least, read some text(s) pertaining to one's dissertation. One does not spend many idle hours gallivanting on the interwebs and playing YahooGames. Sigh. I'm useless.

Actually, despite our heinous heinous trip here and the fact that this is the first Christmas I haven't spent with my own family, Christmas was truly lovely.

April's parents spoiled me with presents (an excellent and quite useful lap-desk-thing for my laptop, stainless steel cup and table-/teaspoon measures, fancy tea, fancy lotion, a pretty blue Chinese silk toiletry bag, and a few other sundries I can't quite remember off the top of my head). Her aunts sent some very nice pajamas and lavender honey and soap and few other things all wrapped in Christmas-y tea towels in their Christmas package for me, and her brother's family gave me this gorgeous little Japanese tea set with a tiny pot and clay cups and, of course, some tea to go with it.

Not that I came empty-handed. Her father: slippers (which he's worn non-stop since Christmas day--yay) and a worst-case scenario outdoor almanac (which he read in its entirety yesterday afternoon, occasionally relaying helpful facts out loud, like how to tell which way is up if you're buried alive). Her mother: a bean-bag-type neck pillow since she always falls asleep watching tv in the strangest positions and a sporty, spring jacket in brown and seafoam green. Her brother and his partner: a Car Talk CD (he's a mechanic) and a red, Chinese silk jewelry bag. And I gave each of her brother's kids both clothes (Quiksilver shirts for the two boys and a pink monkey t-shirt for the six-year-old girl) and toys/games (a car racing game for the oldest boy to play on his new laptop, a 20-questions hand-held game and Wallace and Gromit DVD for the middle boy, and a learn-to-draw Disney princesses DVD-kit for the girl).

Now, I'm biding my time awaiting April's return. We've watched a lot of movies and her mom and I went to one of the malls today so I could look for something else for my parents. April will be back Saturday and we'll probably enjoy the Boxing Week sales with some more shopping (stupid Canadian dollar, why are you so strong?) and then celebrate New Years trying not to lose money at a casino in the city with the rest of the family.

And, to top it all off, I'll get to have a second Christmas with my parents in early January when I get back. At this rate, I'm going to get to extend the holiday right up until my birthday.

eight states, one province, seven days

2007-12-24T12:07:00.000-05:00

Considering the week I’ve had, starting with the 13 hour blizzard drive to Virginia, and concluding with our 20 hour drive from Northern Colorado to Calgary, Alberta, you’d think I was training for The Amazing Race.Thankfully, I am not. And traveling across eight states and one province over the course of a week (and this doesn’t even including the states I flew over getting from Virginia to Colorado) has made me much less inclined towards travel, in general, and road trips, specifically.

I’d like to be say that our Calgary road trip was uneventful and less painful than I thought it would be, but unfortunately that’s not the case. We left April’s apartment at 6:30am, her dog and lots of luggage and Christmas presents in tow, and arrived at her parents’ house in Calgary at 2:30am. We stopped every two to three hours to let the dog out and get gas (at my insistence that we keep the gas tank at least half full to avoid becoming the new Donner party) and entertained ourselves with the first Harry Potter audio book and trying to stay on the road.

Weather conditions, despite multiple reports to the contrary, were not amusing. April drove the first leg, and we started to get a little worried once we entered Wyoming and could see huge clouds on the horizon.

We tried to remain optimistic, but it seemed that each time one of us said “well this isn’t too bad” or “at least we can still see the road,” things would get worse. By the time we were mid-way through Wyoming, April was fighting to both keep the car from being blown off the interstate by huge gusts of wind and see where she was driving through all the blowing snow.

Because I wasn’t driving, I had the luxury to be flippant about the road conditions, commenting on the beauty of the winter landscape. But I would pay dearly for my cheek once I took over the wheel.

Soon, I was driving and conditions cleared for just long enough to lure me into complacency before they got suddenly and horribly worse. The road filled with snow, the four wheel drive wasn’t on—I had forgotten to turn it back on because of the abruptness of the snow’s return and because, in my car, it’s an automatic function—and April was asleep. I tried to drive carefully, listening to Harry Potter, when all of the sudden I hit ice and the car spun to the side at 50 mph. I held onto the steering wheel tightly and tried to pry my foot off the brake (knowing that braking only makes the skidding worse). April woke up in a panic to the sound of me cursing loudly and the sight of the car skidding rapidly sideways down the middle of the interstate. After a few, very long, seconds, we glided to a halt facing backwards but still on the road. As I was trying to turn the car around, still slipping and sliding on the ice, a truck driver decided he couldn’t wait for me and passed me on the shoulder. Luckily, the few other cars on the road stopped and waited while I tried to coax the car forwards.

My hands were shaking and April offered to drive but there were no convenient exits for another hour or so, and I wasn’t about to pull over on the side of the road and end up sliding into the ditch. I consider myself a good and fairly calm driver, but after that I was pretty much a nervous wreak for the rest of the drive (i.e. the next 16 hours) even though once we got to Montana weather conditions cleared up for the most part.

Finally, we were able to trade places and I felt the weight of all my anxiety fade away as I sunk into the passenger seat, totally spent. Unfortunately, when it was my turn to drive again, later in the night, I pulled out of a Safeway parking lot right into three lanes of oncoming one-way traffic! In my defense, there were no signs, but this didn’t help much to calm my already frayed nerves.

Throughout the night, April and I referred to my 180 degree spin-out as “the teacup incident” (because of something my mother said comparing it to that Disney Land teacup ride), but levity aside I was still terrified long after all the ice had melted away. Later, as I was driving the last leg through southern Alberta, I kept feeling phantom ice beneath our tires, imagining the road sliding out from under us with the rotation of the earth, navy sky and dark pavement blurring together.

Still, despite my anxiety and our near-misses, we made it safely to Calgary and are now ensconced here, seemingly gaining a new pound every hour as we’re stuffed full of food and candy. Tonight, there will be eleven people at the dinner table and a room of presents and I can’t think of a better place to be.

Merry Holidays everyone!

bare branches in winter are a form of writing*

2007-12-16T19:30:00.000-05:00

I'm in my parents' house in Virginia, and the trees outside sound like they're performing some sort of wild, frenzied dance in the force of the wind. It's a bit hard for me to wrap my mind around being in Virginia. That it's Sunday. That it's evening. I just woke up an hour ago, actually, having driven the entire night from Western New York to avoid getting caught in a tremendous blizzard.

As of this time yesterday I was still thinking that I would sleep normally, get up early today, and drive carefully out of the city, heavy snow or not. But the forecast kept getting worse and worse, and by 9pm last night, my father was calling me with frantic ultimatums: "Either you leave now or you'll be stuck there until Tuesday morning." This situation, while feasible, would have been unacceptable for me personally, since I'm leaving for Denver on Wednesday to spend Christmas with April and her parents in Canada (more on this in another post--our travel plans are too confusing for me to explain at the moment). So, I packed and cleaned double-time, fielding bi-hourly phone calls from my father (to the point that I was yelling into the phone every time he called, "Every time you call me it slows me down! Stop calling. I'm working on it!").

At about 10:15pm, I estimated my time of departure at T-30 minutes (keeping a countdown in my head). This is when my mother calls: "We think you should just stay there. It's getting too dangerous." I'm mid zipping up my suitcase. I look out of the window. The snow is coming down fast, but the flakes are small, icy.

"Um. No. Now I'm leaving. I'm almost ready to go. I need to just go. It doesn't look so bad outside.” This isn’t a lie. Not really. My mother acquiesces hesitantly and I hang up.

I call my pet-sitter. Ask her if she can feed the cats in the morning. Of course she says “sure,” wishes me luck.

I pack the car frenetically in a sweater because I’m so over-heated from bustling around my house for two hours. By the time I’m done, I’m covered in ice and snow. I say goodbye to my cats and bird, all of whom look at me with deeply perplexed expressions. I know they’ll be in good hands while I’m gone, but the rushed departure has made these rather simple pet-goodbyes much harder.

Once I start driving, I realize that it’s going to be slow, but not awful, as long as I drive south as expediently as possible. My parents talk to me on my cell phone for a while, dispensing helpful advice and informing me of road conditions, much like Lara Croft’s team of computer experts in Tomb Raider.

We chat while I drive until I realize that, in my haste, I forgot to charge my cell phone. I’m at about 35%. Enough for emergencies, but not enough to talk all night. And I can’t find my car charger anywhere. I reluctantly hang up, promising to call again in two hours. I call April, tell her I’ve left and will call her when I get there.

The drive is challenging and slow, but I don’t really feel unsafe until I’m in the Pennsylvania hill country and I suddenly think that I’m alone, no other cars, driving in a combination of sleet and snow and freezing rain between huge rocky crags. What if something happened to my car, what if I end up in one of those made-for-tv disaster/horror films about highway murders or starving to death while trapped under ten feet of snow? Actually, starving to death doesn’t concern me as much because I packed enough food and water for ten car trips.

I eat snack food compulsively for the next few hours, driving slowly through snow which turns to freezing rain, stop to buy some Vault soda at a 24-hour supermarket at 3am and keep driving until I hit a rest area just south of Carlisle, PA. It’s only raining here, no more snow. It’s 6am and I’ve been driving for 7 hours, so I stop and sleep until 8:30am.

The worst part of the drive has to be the half an hour after waking up but before I get coffee. I can barely keep my eyes open and focused on the road.

Finally, I veer off the interstate for my favorite part of the drive: the last two hours through rural Virginia. It’s a gorgeous morning and the landscape is stunning, like waking up to find the whole world has changed while you were asleep. Everything is glistening. The trees are covered from trunk to branch in ice—coated and smooth and gleaming—and I imagine for a moment that I’m driving through a field of huge snowflakes, shimmering in the hazy sunlight.

April calls me, worried, because I’ve been on the road for twelve hours with no word. I assure her that I’m fine and, since I’m so close to home, we talk until the battery of my phone is almost dead.

When I get to my parents’ house at noon, my mother calls down from the balcony, “You’re here!” and comes out to help me unpack. My father, who’s been up all night monitoring my progress, comes outside in a shirt and no pants, hugs me and proclaims he’s going back to bed.

I drag my suitcase upstairs, change into pajamas, climb into my childhood loft and sleep for five hours. When I wake up, my parents have gone to their weekly Sunday afternoon tango lesson and I’m alone in the dim, empty house with the trees performing their harried wind-dance outside.

I make a few phone calls, check my email, still in a daze.

My parents come home. I greet my mother and look at her plaintively, bare feet on the hardwood, my sweatshirt hood pulled over my head.

“You’re hungry, aren’t you?” She says.

I nod, pleased she knows me so well. She laughs.

“We’re glad you’re here.”

Me too.

-------------------------------

* NOTE: The title line is from an incredibly germane Billy Collins poem, Winter Syntax.

Winter Syntax, by Billy Collins

A sentence starts out like a lone traveler
heading into a blizzard at midnight,
tilting into the wind, one arm shielding his face,
the tails of his thin coat flapping behind him.

There are easier ways of making sense,
the connoisseurship of gesture, for example.
You hold a girl's face in your hands like a vase.
You lift a gun from the glove compartment
and toss it out the window into the desert heat.
These cool moments are blazing with silence.

The full moon makes sense. When a cloud crosses it
it becomes as eloquent as a bicycle leaning
outside a drugstore or a dog who sleeps all afternoon
in a corner of the couch.

Bare branches in winter are a form of writing.
The unclothed body is autobiography.
Every lake is a vowel, every island a noun.

But the traveler persists in his misery,
struggling all night through the deepening snow,
leaving a faint alphabet of bootprints
on the white hills and the white floors of valleys,
a message for field mice and passing crows.

At dawn he will spot the vine of smoke
rising from your chimney, and when he stands
before you shivering, draped in sparkling frost,
a smile will appear in the beard of icicles,
and the man will express a complete thought.

winter wonderland

2007-12-07T02:25:00.000-05:00

A blog posting by my old middle-school friend, M, prompted me to think about my relationship to snow. She made a very astute observation about why us Southerners-by-upbringing (and I use the term southern loosely, as some would not consider Virginia southern, per se) are much more appreciative of snow (generally speaking) than Northerners.

Two words: snow days.

I have fond childhood memories of days, sometimes even weeks, off from school--sledding with my friends down treacherous slopes, making snow angels, building forts. Of course, it wasn't all fun and games: sometimes the power went out (once, when I was in 3rd or 4th grade, a power outage at my parents' house afforded me a multiple-day sleepover with one of my close friends; maybe my parents were cold and in the dark, but I was having a grand old time). Also, snow days meant we had to make up class over other holidays (like Memorial Day), and the School Board could tack on up to something like 10 more days of school in June. But somehow none of this mattered. The sight of snow still fills me with childlike glee despite its ubiquity here in "lake effect" land.

And now that April has safely made it back home from her visit this past weekend--after being stranded here for a day when the airport shut down during our mini-blizzard on Monday--I can speak freely and say that, as frustrating as the whole flight cancellation fiasco was, I still found our first snowstorm of the season immeasurably beautiful. I mean, if I can still love snow after all the havoc it caused last year--ice damming, heavy roof leakage, basement flooding--then my affection must be quite deep-seated indeed.

Snow appreciation is a tenuous issue, though, geographically speaking. My friends who come from warmer climes (California, for example, or Georgia) do not appreciate the snow at all because they find the entire idea of being cold anathema to their general existence. Friends who grew up in the North, Midwest or Canada tend to think of snow as just something to be endured (unless they're skiers or snowboarders, but that's another story) because it afforded them no school-free pleasure as children. Perhaps you need to be from somewhere with relatively moderate weather--and where the city does not keep an adequate number of snowplows on hand--to find that delicate balance of the ability to tolerate colder weather while still appreciating snow's, I don't know, snowy-ness.

Or maybe it's just me, rhapsodizing about snow on my blog at two in the morning. Who knows.

Not The Daily Show, With Some Writer

2007-11-15T23:29:00.001-05:00

Really excellent commentary on the writer's strike, by the writers of The Daily Show.

a week for the record books

2007-10-21T22:58:00.000-04:00

I have been so busy this week I can barely wrap my mind around it myself, so I thought I'd blog about it so that in the future I can look back and say, "Wow. I was totally insane. What was I thinking? I'm glad my life isn't like that anymore." Except I won't be saying that a) because my life will always be like this and b) because I absolutely adore being busy. It's the only way I can ever get anything done. When I have a lot of time, I sit around and feel restless and bored and accomplish absolutely nothing. But this past week I went a bit overboard--an exercise in madness, I'd say.

Things start out fairly low-key on Monday and Tuesday but spiral out of control to near untenability by Saturday night:

Monday:

spent morning working on grant applications
4:30-7pm: taught karate
7:15-9pm: attended screening of Blue Steel (Kathryn Bigelow, 1990) for the course I'm teaching

Tuesday:

spent most of day working on grant applications and/or moping around
went shopping for something for the girlfriend, also bought cute shirts from H&M
7:30-8:30pm: jiujitsu class

Wednesday:

12-3:30pm: attended two lectures and luncheon on campus
4:30-7pm: taught karate
7:30-9pm: horseback riding

Thursday:

9:30-11am: attended meeting about professional development with yesterday's lecturers
12-1pm: swam with my friend V. while wearing my new waterproof mp3 player, which I love
1-2pm: office hours
2-3:20pm: prepped for class
3:30-4:40: taught class. Most of my students hated Blue Steel, which I found a bit frustrating since I think there's so much more to the film than its rather implausible narrative. My students also turned in their midterm papers which I haven't had a chance to look at yet.
4:40-5:45: returned home to feed cats, dropped off backpack/laptop, switched wallet and cellphone from backpack to purse
6-7:30pm: cocktails and dinner with the Board of Trustees in my capacity as speaker for university graduate group here (they invited all the representatives of all the student groups on campus. There were probably ten of us total, undergrad and grad, from various groups, and forty or so Trustees.)
8-9:30pm: special performance of Garth Fagan Dance for the UR's Meliora Weekend (alumni and parents' weekend). Because I was part of the Trustees' "party" I had amazing seats in the fifth row. The performance was incredible, as always--I love modern dance.
9:30-10:45pm: returned home to change into my 80s outfit for an 80s dance party at a local bar in town: black short skirt, black tank, fuchsia tights, fuchsia nail polish, fuchsia felted wool hat (which my aunt made), hot pink satin tie, hot pink earrings, hot pink eyeshadow
10:45pm-1am: picked up my friend V. and then went to join a few of my other friends at the bar. The dancing itself was kind of lame because the DJ wasn't playing very danceable 80s music. But dressing up was fun.

Friday:

10:15-11:30am: attended the General Session of the Board of Trustees. Decided I either want to somehow become famous and very wealthy and become a Trustee or work my way up the academic ladder and become a Dean and/or Provost. What can I say? I like power.
12-1pm: Luncheon with Board of Trustees and other student reps.
1-2pm: Meeting with officers of the campus-wide graduate group. Brainstormed ideas about up-ing grad student involvement.
spent the rest of the afternoon at home decompressing and shopping for groceries
7:30pm-12am: went over to my friend K.'s house, made her dinner (tacos carne asadas), watched Gia, which I had seen before but she hadn't (and I think she liked it but was utterly depressed afterward)

Saturday:

6am: got up (ugg!), showered, dressed, picked up three other students to drive Cornell (approximately two hours away) for a video art conference
7-9:30am: drove to Ithaca/Cornell U.
9:30am-12:50pm: first session of the conference
1-2pm: lunch
2-4pm: second session of the conference and the hideously long Q&A in which the moderator didn't seem to understand ending things on time (they went half an hour over). The conference affirmed my suspicions about why video art is not useful for my work and how it doesn't fit with my project. This may sound like a negative, but I actually appreciated the reassurance of what I already suspected.
4:30-7pm: picked up coffee at Dunkin Donuts and headed back home
7pm: talked to four different friends on the phone to solidify evening plans despite the fact that I was exhausted (there had been a plan to go dancing, but I was getting the distinct impression this was going to fall through)
7:30-8:30pm: got a second wind, showered away the day's grim and redressed in less formal clothing
8:30-9:45pm: dinner with friends V., N., B. and A. at an excellent Italian restaurant managed by a friend of mine (he always gives me free food even though he doesn't have to--I love the food there and would go back again and again anyway)
9:45-10:00pm: dropped off V. and N. at home, picked up flowers for my friend K. at the grocery store (she was having a bad day)
10:00-10:15pm: talked briefly to April on my cell
10:15pm: re-joined A. (who had dropped off B. at home) in front of some guy's house who was supposedly having a party. I told A. I'd go with her for a little while since clubbing plans had fallen through but when we arrived there seemed to be no party happening. We decided to go have a drink and come back in case people were just late in arriving.
10:15-11pm (ish): drank margaritas with A. and chatted
11pm-1am: returned to guy's house but it still didn't look like anyone was there. A. didn't really know him very well so we decided it would be awkward to knock in case the party is actually next week. And then we decided to go out dancing anyway even though everyone else flaked out. Very fun and cathartic and lovely to hang out with A. even though it would have been great if others had wanted to join us.
1am: dropped by K.'s apartment on my way home from dancing to give her the flowers (she's a night owl, I knew she'd still be up)
drove home and talked to April on the cell for about 30 minutes (she's in a different timezone so it wasn't even midnight yet for her) until I had to go to bed or risk falling over from exhaustion.

Whew!

And then today, I've spent most of the day working on the aforementioned grant applications, catching up on email and reading the proofs of a forthcoming article. It feels nice to have a day off, so to speak (although all I've done is work all day), but somehow I feel oddly restless again. Ah, well, another week is ahead of me.

the sarah connor chronicles

2007-10-15T02:32:00.000-04:00

Dear Fox Networks,
If you actually air this pilot and the show turns out to be any good at all, perhaps I will reconsider my general disdain towards your network and its right-wing conservatude. Right now you really only have The Simpsons and Family Guy going for you (and I suppose House), but those are all old news. Don't you want to take that step towards good drama programming? Don't you?

And, seriously, Summer Glau? Then it has to be good.

Or, it could be really bad. But at least air the pilot, yo. Okay?

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

2007-10-07T03:28:00.000-04:00

I. Am. Exhausted.

In case my subject heading for this entry didn't give that away.

Actually this post is kind of a placeholder for a couple things. One, it marks me exceeding the 100th post on my Blog. Yay! Two, it's an apology for the 3 people who read this journal (anyone, anyone, Bueller?) in regards to my general lack of posting the past few weeks. I was getting really good at staying on top of the blogging, but then life intervened. I got back from Colorado on Wednesday night after visiting April over the weekend, which was lovely but sad (because I had to leave again), and I've been so ridiculously busy the past few weeks I can't even think straight (no pun intended). What with teaching karate and weekly horseback riding and trying to write dissertation fellowship applications and writing a call for papers for a journal issue I'm co-editing and somehow becoming the Speaker for the graduate group at UR and teaching my women's studies class...I don't really have much time to breathe, let along post LJ entries. Blah. And now ImageOut (Roc's LGBTQ film festival) has started (I was on the programming committee) and I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off introducing movies and entertaining guests (actually just one guest, but still).

I did, however, read a good book recently (on the plane to CO): A Spot of Bother, by Mark Haddon (he also wrote The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, which is told from the point of view of a boy with Asperger's Sydrome). His newest novel is quite good with fascinatingly-flawed ensemble cast of characters. Charming, witty and a bit sad all at the same time.

eastern promises

2007-09-23T18:12:00.000-04:00

Friday night, I was all ready to settle down for an evening of rampant Netflix-enabled television-on-DVD viewing, when a friend called and asked if I wanted to see the new David Crohenberg thriller, Eastern Promises (starring Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts) with her and a few others. Part of my brain, suffering from inertia, wanted to just stay home, but the wiser part of my brain told me that I should go and be a social butterfly or I might regret it and not actually ever get it together to watch the film. I had heard good things, but didn't actually think Eastern Promises was my kind of movie (whatever that means). In any case, I wasn't really in the mood to watch a narrative about the Russian mob and white slavery--especially considering how violent the movie was said to be.

Ultimately, I was exceptionally glad my friend called me. Eastern Promises is an incredible film, one I enjoyed far more than I expected. The violence is intense, but isolated, and the rest of the film has a haunting stillness to it that seems to be the new modus operandi for the contemporary thriller (e.g. The Brave One). While my friend was able to provide an instantaneous, intellectual and eloquent post-film analysis, I'm not feeling particularly smart this weekend, so I'll settle for pointing you in the direction of A.O. Scott's NY Times Review.

does mama have to do everything around here?

2007-09-17T02:27:00.000-04:00

In honor of 30 Rock's Emmy win and Tina Fey's general brilliance, I bring you three YouTube videos. The first two are NBC promotional videos for the show--one about Alec Baldwin's comedic excellence, the second about Liz Lemon's (Tina's character) poor dating track record. Both include some of my favorite clips from the show. The third clip is Tina Fey's new American Express ad, which basically wraps up everything I love about Tina Fey in a big bright package with a bow on top.

Oh, and watch 30 Rock -- season 2 begins October 4 at 8:30pm and the entire first season is available legally and for free on NBC.com! It is truly my favorite sitcom of all time.

i want my dog back!

2007-09-16T17:11:00.000-04:00

On the surface, the plot of The Brave One is somewhat simplistic, a standard revenge/vigilante thriller with a satisfying, if implausible, ending. But, deep down, it's something more: a brutal love song to the city of New York, a narrative about reclamation and identity and overcoming traumas that are impossible to overcome. It's not a perfect film by any means, but the underlying psychology of the film and Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard's subtle, precise performances lend The Brave One a quiet brilliance that, for me, makes up for its occasional stumbles. Besides, who can resist Jodie Foster kicking ass, enacting a fantasy of vigilantism that everyone can relate to even if only in our darkest dreams.

A radio journalist with an NPR-esque program called "Street Walk," Erica Bains (Jodie Foster) is almost impossibly happy with her life and her fiance, David, a doctor played by Naveen Andrews (from the hit TV show Lost). Knowing what's about to happen in the film, their happiness together is especially heartbreaking and, I agree with A.O. Scott's NY Times review in this, "remind[s] you just how little the portrayal of happiness has figured in Ms. Foster’s recent performances" (for another compelling NY Times article that's more about Foster than the film, read "Forever Jodie, Forever a Pro"). Walking through Central Park with their dog at dusk, Erica and David are savagely attacked by three hoodlums with a pipe. When Erica awakens three weeks later in the hospital, she's told that David is dead and finds her world crumbling around her.

Barely able to leave her apartment for fear of the streets she used to love, Erica buys a gun illegally (worried she won't make it through the mandatory 30 day wait for a license) for protection. Trouble seems to find Erica, and when she witnesses a murder at a convenience store, she's forced to take the law into her own hands. Afterwards, Erica finds herself becoming a different person, and while the first time she fires her gun she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, each episode of her vigilantism escalates compellingly, from justifiable self-defense to questionable entrapment to outright predation. Meanwhile, she befriends Terrence Howard's character Detective Mercer, who's been assigned to the case of the unknown vigilante killer, even interviewing him for her radio show. Foster and Howard have a tenuous sort of chemistry that's perfect for their relationship on screen.

The most fascinating aspect of The Brave One for me is how deeply it tries to entrench us in Erica's mind, to make us experience what she's going through and to let us see how even she doesn't truly understand what she's going through. For an action film, The Brave One is remarkably restrained, relying more on psychological tension than gratuitous violence. Moreover, the cinematography--New York all sharply-focused edges and oversaturated grey-tones--and largely ambient soundtrack really add to the vicious, deeply disturbing calmness of the film.

ocd mtwtfss

2007-09-14T16:23:00.000-04:00

While I was in Germany in May, I brought a set of days-of-the-week socks. Only I didn't realize at the time that they were days-of-the-week socks; I just thought, "Oh! Look at the pretty multicolored seven-pack of ankle socks. How exciting!" Now, as much as I love my pretty multicolored days-of-the-week socks, they are causing a bit of a problem for me because every time I go to get a pair of socks from that particular batch (I do have other, non-labeled, socks as well) I feel obnoxiously compelled to find the proper day. It doesn't matter if I'm wearing green and the correct day's socks are purple. And no matter how I try to overcome this compulsion, I can't. The idea of wearing the wrong day's socks drives me crazy. And the search for the correct pair of socks drives me crazy. It's almost enough to make me want to not ever wear any of the days-of-the-weeks socks ever again. And that's just so sad. Sad, as in pathetic. And a little bit sad-sad, too.

ash and scribbs

2007-09-12T22:21:00.000-04:00

I've recently discovered a new television show over which to obsess--to the point that I watched the first three episodes back-to-back the moment they were delivered to me via Netflix. Murder in Suburbia is an hour-long British police show starring two female detectives who, you guessed it, investigate murders in suburban England. Its like Cagney and Lacey meets Monk meets Sex and the City meets Law and Order. Kate Ashurst and Emma Scribbins (affectionately nicknamed Ash and Scribbs) are clever and gutsy and quite amusing (their banter and Ash's "rules" pretty much make the show), with Ash playing posh to Scribbs's down-to-earth party-girl charm. It's a fluffy show, no deep hidden morals or inner truths, but it's well-made and highly entertaining--and not just because of all the British accents.

it wasn't easy to do what he had to do

2007-09-10T01:39:00.000-04:00

Last night I watched Making Love, a 1982 film directed by Arthur Hiller and starring Michael Ontkean (as Zach), Kate Jackson (as Zach's wife, Claire) and Harry Hamlin (as Zach's lover, Bart). It's a film that's practically canon in gay film history because of its sensitive and thoughtful portrayal of a married man coming out and accepting his homosexuality. I was more impressed and moved by this film than I expected to be (especially since I intended to watch it only to fuel my love affair with Kate Jackson). Making Love is well-done and compelling, but its stakes are also crystal clear: the film wants to dissuade its audience from the notion of homosexuality as a perversion and so a few moments that would have made the film more 'real' got left by the wayside. While we all may dream of having as understanding a wife (or husband) as Jackson's character--who, after only a minor breakdown (well-acted, I might add), decides she really just wants her husband to find happiness, even if its not with her--her relative compassion for the situation does seem a bit out of place. And even though I prefer a little more veracity in my social consciousness-raising films, I can respect a film that wants to secure sympathy for all its characters and not allow either the gay husband, his loner lover or the jilted wife to seem villains. Overall, completely worth-seeing, and not just because of Jackson’s appeal.

PoP goes my heart!

2007-09-10T01:34:00.001-04:00

I watched Music and Lyrics last night, the Drew Barrymore/Hugh Grant vehicle in which he plays an aging pop star and she plays the aspiring writer who happens to have a knack for lyrics and helps him write a new comeback song. Typical romantic comedy fodder: boy meets girl, boy needs girls help, boy and girl fall and love, boy does something stupid, girl is sad, boy repents and makes it up to her...happily ever after. Needless to say--because I love Barrymore and Grant--it was an adorable movie and totally made my night. It's not the most brilliant rom-com in the world (it's not on its way to becoming a classic like When Harry Met Sally or anything), but was still very well-done and clever. I especially enjoyed getting to sing along to the incredibly cheesy-oh-so-wonderful pop songs that peppered this film.

inhale exhale inhale exhale inhale...

2007-09-10T01:04:00.000-04:00

So, quick update in bullet points because I'm feeling a bit lazy tonight:

April's been in Colorado now for almost a month (she's an assistant professor, tenure-track even--which means I'm dating a professor, how strange!), and it's both better and worse that I expected. I miss her terribly and the house is incredibly empty, but I'm coping all right and we talk every night. While I'm lonely, I don't feel that awkwardness that sometimes comes with the long-distance relationship territory, so that's heartening.
Meanwhile, the cats are keeping me company. Reggie (April's cat--who's with me until she can fly him back to CO with her) is especially clingy. Velcro-cat. So lovable.
Speaking of cats, I had a hysterical, adrenaline packed half hour last night when my cat, Olive, caught a mouse and then proceeded to torture it. I tried to get it away from her--I couldn't stand to see the poor, terrified thing try to run away and get toyed with. It escaped into the fireplace and I haven't seen it since. Either it was relatively uninjured and managed to sneak away later in the evening (highly doubtful) or it died a lonely, scared death in the ashes from internal bleeding. I know it's silly, but I'm still a bit torn up about it. I couldn't let Olive near me the rest of the night. Especially since she's in the habit of licking me. Eww. Icky, mangy mouse breath!
I started teaching my Action Heroine class (noted in an earlier post) on Thursday and the first day seemed to go well. I like my students and I hope we all have a fun semester together. You can find the syllabus here, if you're interested.
I'm also teaching karate at my dojo. The little kids (4-7 year-old white belts!) are both the cutest and by far the hardest to teach. They have the attention span of gnats and can't stand still to save their lives. It's a good thing their so cute. Survival of the species--mammals are the cutest at the age when they're the most annoying.
Because of the lonely-house malaise I've been relying heavily on my Netflix account to supply me with movies and television shows to while away the empty hours. Expect to see more film reviews in this space in the near future.

making the sky rain coconuts with pinpoint accuracy

2007-07-29T15:04:00.000-04:00

So I watched Supergirl (from 1984) last night. That's two hours of my life I'll never get back. The only redeeming factor was that it was so inane and ludicrous, that I laughed through most of the movie. Laughing at the movie, not with the movie. Of course they were basing it to some extent on the comic books, but that's no excuse for gigantic plot holes and general stupidity. And I think the cinematographer had watched Barbarella (the crazy-campy-wonderful 1968 Jane Fonda sci-fi/fantasy sexploitation film) one too many times but didn't channel it particularly well. And that was the least of the film's problems.

I've been watching a lot of old (and not so old) action heroine films in the past few months because I'm teaching an Introduction to Women's Studies class on Action Heroines in American Culture in the fall, and though I already have a syllabus together, I want to have a general sense of what else is out there. I'm having trouble with the 80s; there really isn't much. My filmography (so far) is below. If you see anything that I'm missing (American films or television shows or foreign films/shows with a widespread US release -- action films with a female protagonist), leave me a comment and let me know!

The Avengers (TV: 1961-1969)
Honey West (TV: 1965-1966)
Get Smart (TV: 1965-1970)
Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill (1965)
Barbarella (1968)
Coffy (1973)
Cleopatra Jones (1973)
Foxy Brown (1974)
The Bionic Woman (TV: 1976-78)
Wonder Woman (TV: 1976-79)
Charlie's Angels (TV: 1976-81)
Alien (1979)
Remington Steel (TV: 1982-87)
Cagney and Lacey (TV: 1982-88)
Sheena (1984)
Supergirl (1984)
The Terminator (1984)
She-ra: Princess of Power (TV: 1985)
Aliens (1986)
Blue Steel (1990)
La Femme Nikita (1990)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Thelma and Louise (1991)
Buffy: The Vampire Slayer (1992)
Bad Girls (1994)
The Next Karate Kid (1994)
Tank Girl (1995)
Xena: The Warrior Princess (TV: 1995-2001)
The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
G.I. Jane (1997)
La Femme Nikita (TV: 1997-2001)
Buffy: The Vampire Slayer (TV: 1997-2001)
The Avengers (1998)
The Matrix (1999)
Charlie’s Angels (2000)
Miss Congeniality (2000)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Ginger Snaps (2000)
Cleopatra 2525 (TV: 2000-2001)
Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2001)
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
Alias (TV: 2001-2006)
Birds of Prey (TV: 2002-2003)
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)
Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003)
Underworld (2003)
Kill Bill, Vol. 2 (2004)
Catwoman (2004)
Ginger Snaps: Unleashed (2004)
Aeon Flux (2005)
Domino (2005)
Elektra (2005)
Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005)
Serenity (2005)
V for Vendetta (2005)
Underworld: Evolution (2006)
Heroes (TV: 2006- )
Bionic Woman (TV: 2007- )

my new food network girlfriend

2007-07-22T22:02:00.000-04:00

YAAAAAAAAAAY!

Amy Finley won The Next Food Network Star. And, yes, I'm insanely excited because I love her (and really didn't like Rory, the other possible, at all). I adored Paul, but he got eliminated before the final round. Besides, she's cute.

(I know, I'm crazy, but it's the only reality show I watch, folks. Let a girl have her moment.)

bugsy malone

2007-07-20T22:48:00.000-04:00

April and I went to the Dryden Theatre tonight to see Bugsy Malone, a 1976 cult classic that I'd never heard of before. Totally brilliant. Set in prohibition-era New York City, it's a pseudo-noir gangster film musical romantic comedy, and the entire cast is made up of children between the ages of 6 and 14. All the kids were amazing, especially Jodie Foster and Scott Baio who star in the film as the worldly nightclub singer Tallulah and the good-natured hero Bugsy, respectively. Foster's so good, it's a little uncanny, actually. You know she's only 14 at the time of this film and yet she acts like she's 20--a very earnest, very mature 20. Amazing, but freaky.

Here's the original trailer of the film. If you haven't seen it, I'd order it on Netflix. There's really nothing like it.

nikki and nora

2007-06-28T22:33:00.000-04:00

Through my vast and nefarious internet connections, I just discovered that in 2004 UPN optioned a drama pilot about, of all things, two lesbian detectives (partners in both senses of the word) in New Orleans. It was called Nikki and Nora and was supposed to be a CSI/Law and Order sort of show. Obviously, the show didn't make it off the ground and the pilot is all that was ever filmed, but I'm amazed and impressed that UPN even optioned it in the first place. In any case, maybe I'm the last to know, but I've heard nary a peep about this until recently so I doubt it. There was brief article about the show on AfterEllen.com, but besides that there's not much out there. However, a few weeks ago someone I sort of know (in that aforementioned nefarious internet sort of way) posted the entire pilot on YouTube in pretty decent quality so I thought I should share.

The pilot's really not bad--such a crying shame it never aired.

a mighty heart

2007-06-19T23:58:00.000-04:00

Knowing well that I was risking a night of almost certain depression, last night April and I went to see a preview screening of A Mighty Heart (Dir. Michael Winterbottom), the drama based on the search for and murder of kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and featuring Angelina Jolie as his wife Mariane. I'd heard a bit about the film beforehand, mostly comments about Jolie--e.g. some questioning of her suitability for the role and suggestions that she was too big a star for the film, that her celebrity might taint the integrity of the story, plus some rumors that Jolie used artificial bronzer so her skin tone would closer approximate that of the Cuban-French Mariane. And, of course, I also knew the story of Daniel Pearl in that oblique way I know about most headline news.

We all know how the story ends, we can imagine how the story begins, but, as the tagline of the film tells us, "this is the story you haven't heard." And, surprisingly, it's true. I think, if nothing else, the film embodies the harrowing uncertainty and claustrophobia (as one of my friends described it) of military and police investigations. As Mariane's house becomes the center of operations in the search for her husband, the growing number of computers and printers and ringing cell phones serve well to signify the intricate, violent, convoluted turmoil of war and terrorism.

While we may know the ending, it is very clear from her steadfast optimism and her cautious hope that Mariane does not, and I think this is something that Jolie conveys extremely well. (By the way, I quickly got over "Angelina" and came to focus on her as "Mariane," and I don't agree at all that she's too big for the picture. This could be a potential problem with almost any big-name actor, and it's up to the actor to embody their role so fully that you believe. And Jolie does this.) In fact, all the actors were excellent--from the Police Captain played by Irfan Khan (also in The Namesake) and Archie Panjabi as fellow reporter and friend Asra Q. Nomani to an ensemble of recognizable and not-so-recognizable others whose acting, overall, was understated, dramatic and heartfelt in all the right ways.

On the whole, I think the film does what it sets out to do--tell an untold story--and somehow manages to do this without being totally over the top. Discomfiting camera angles, slightly grainy film stock (unless that was just my imagination), and crowded, tightly-framed scenes imbue the film with a continual aura of anxiety. While it, fortunately, doesn't strive for the over-dramatic or the graphically-traumatic, the film also doesn't shy away from despair when the time comes. Most of the film is just quietly heartwrenching, but Mariane's eventual breakdown is so visceral it made me want to look away from the screen, and yet it felt completely appropriate, even necessary, and such a hauntingly-stark contrast to her previous hopeful vitality that this scene all but made the film for me.

row, row, row your boat

2007-05-22T10:07:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting in a ferry backing out of a French port on our way across the Channel to Dover and have a fairly strong wireless connection. That alone seemed to be reason enough to post.

The trip has been great so far; my Oma's (grandma's) 80th birthday went well (even though a server at the restaurant where the party was being held dropped one of the five home-baked cakes on the asphalt while transporting it from car to kitchen). Otherwise, it's been relaxing, and I've accomplished nothing besides vast amounts of shopping--typical--and a trip via the pleasingly-punctual regional train to Cologne to visit my good friend N. and her boyfriend, both of whom I got to know at UR my first year in VCS (she came as part of the German exchange program, to get an MA in Comp. Lit.).

More later when we reach London. I'm going to let April check her email, too, as long as this connection holds out!

i heart patricia arquette

2007-05-09T22:39:00.000-04:00

"You see messages from dead people?"
(You really need to hear Neve Campbell's delivery of this line to love it as much as I do.)

God, I love Medium.

And I am deeply, deeply upset that I will be in Germany during the season finale. I started screaming at the screen when I realized that this episode was going to be another "to be continued..." Waaahh.

the young and the restless

2007-05-07T22:09:00.000-04:00

I was at the gym today, trying to make up for the fact that when I leave for Germany on Monday I won't be able to exercise at all (except sporadic attempts of the "8 minutes abs" video with my mother), and I was listening to various weird disco tracks that I downloaded onto my iPod god-knows-when and watching, of all things, The Young and the Restless. Okay, so "watching" is probably an overstatment, as it was more of a distraction, an inability I have to work out in front of a big flat-screen tv without being drawn into whatever's on. Even if it's The Young and the Restless. Sometimes, if I'm in the right mood, I'll watch even if it's Nascar or NFL or some other ESPN nonsense (I draw the line at golf, though). Anyway, my post's not really supposed to be about that. I don't care about The Young and the Restless, except that the title seemed apt. Onwards.

That said, I took my qualifying exams a little over a week ago, and while it was tremendously exciting to jump through that one huge, firey hoop, I now find myself in a sort of general malaise, a restless stupor, if you will. The fact that I proctored a 3-hour calculus exam today for a little bit of extra money isn't helping matters. Proctoring is probably one of the most mind-numbing things you can do yourself--staring at 220 students as they sweat over their answer sheets, constantly moving about and scanning the rows and rows of seats to make sure no one's cheating. I'd honestly rather watch grass grow because at least then I could take a nap or read a book and not have to worry that the grass would sneak off to the bathroom and read a cheat sheet off of its cell phone. And I have to do two more of these this week!

Oh well, I really shouldn't complain. I am getting paid for my misery, and I did willingly sign up for the hours. I thought that sitting and doing nothing for 3 hours would feed and placate my post-exam inertia, but apparently all it did was make me even more restless and useless. I'm supposed to be writing an abstract to submit to a call for papers, but instead I'm doing everything but: fiddling with my MySpace and Friendster profiles and photos (neither of which anyone but me reads, I think), posting to my blog (ditto the last parenthetical), checking my email literally every 10 minutes (why are there no emails? why???), and a whole host of other things which I refuse to own up to.

Pre-exam, I felt very strongly that I should have a post-exam break to enjoy some relative freedom from writing before what I hope will be a productive summer. Funny that now I don't really want that freedom as much as I thought. My attempts at relaxation have made me restless, sullen and emotionally needy. How tragic. Almost melodramatic. Soap-operatic?

Okay. Clearly I'm losing my mind. Perfect mindset to write an abstract.

poetry with an edge

2007-05-06T22:19:00.000-04:00

Something my mother sent me this afternoon that gave me much pleasure:

Wordsworth...for the YouTube generation

qualifying for...something or other

2007-04-23T22:05:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note before I bury my nose back in a book: On Friday I'm taking my Qualifying Exams (after which, assuming I pass, I will be a Ph.D. Candidate and ABD--"all but dissertation"), so if it seems that I have been particularily MIA these past few weeks/months, that's why. Perhaps after my exams, when I have time to breath again, I will report on the incredible craziness of the last few months. Perhaps. In any case, rest assured that if I owe you an email or a letter or a phone call, you'll be hearing from me soon.

dance dance revolution

2007-03-31T15:34:00.001-04:00

This video is of myself and my dance instructor (at the time), Edwin Roa, performing an Argentine Tango/Paso Doble routine at a Spring 2000 dance showcase. Wow, that was a long time ago. This was when I was still heavily involved in ballroom dancing and had fantasies of one day competing professionally (now quite doubtful). Of the many dances I performed, I still feel best about this one (except that little bobble at the end with drives me crazy to this day). (Paso Doble, for those who are curious, is a form of ballroom dance that mimics bull fighting; the man/leader is the matador and the woman/follower represents the flag. How boring. It's always bothered me that the woman isn't the bull. Or maybe that should be the guy. I don't know.)

I am certainly risking (assuring?) embarrasment by posting this, but since my father has already elected to upload various recitals, readings and showcases (mostly my mother's) all over YouTube, it seems like the damage might already be done!

another reason not to go to prison...

2007-03-24T19:29:00.000-04:00

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/16861780.htm

Is it just me, or does this seem very wrong? Not organ donation. But organ donation in exchange for reduced prison sentences? Doesn't that make it less of a donation and more like a...er...bribe? What's next? Haven't any of you people read Kazuo Ishiguru's Never Let Me Go?

Let's see what Stephen has to say about it:

it's a dog's life

2007-03-18T12:15:00.000-04:00

Introducing a new excuse in the "dog ate my homework" family of excuses:

"I'm sorry. I didn't get my dissertation done because my animals smothered me, insisting I sit on a very tiny corner of the couch where they could all pile either on top of me or near me and make it absolutely impossible for me to turn on or even open my laptop."

In exchange for making writing occassionally difficult, Fargo has agreed to help me with my dissertation reseach:

Yeah, uh, we'll see how that goes...

christmas in march

2007-03-14T21:27:00.000-04:00

Yes, yes, it's another vastly belated post. I'm not even going to bother offering up excuses. I'm sure you could all recite them for me by now. In any case, I was recently procrastinating by adding pictures to my rarely-used MySpace account, when I came across a group of photos I meant to post just after the holidays. They were already re-sized and everything! So here you go: a little photo-diary of our 2 weeks in Virginia over Christmas and New Years.

Apparently it was my father's goal this winter to continue where horseback riding and karate leave off and complete my training in becoming either one of Charlie's Angels or James Bond. Not that I'm complaining, although Freddy+new motorcycle sort of terrifies me.

That's me on the back of Fred's new Buell. We were riding up to the high school parking lot, where I was submitted to an exhilarating thirty minute motorcycle crash course:

Yes, that's me driving. I was going about 5 mph at the time. It was fun, I have to say, even though I dropped the bike twice (one of those times it just about landed on my leg!) while trying to get off. I don't think I'll be getting a motorcycle anytime soon though. Not only is April very opposed to the idea, but Rochester just doesn't have the most hospitable climate for enjoying the spirit of the open road. Now motocross, though, that'd be fun! (I'm not joking.)

Here Rita looks cross at the mere prospect of two wheels. She rode home behind Fred and afterwards said, "Well, I did that once. Once is enough." She looks good in yellow, though, doesn't she? Like a super snazzy Storm Tropper.

Of course, no good Angel is complete without some weapons training. That's a miniture Uzi in my hands. Legal in Virginia. Not that I'm the least surprised.

April fired her fair share of fancy guns, too. We were shooting at pieces of paper stuck to boards for the most part, but the exploding targets a friend of my father's provided were a fun novelty.

Here, Fargo looks perplexed: "Hey! Just as long as you don't mistake me for a deer!" Don't worry, Fargo, paper targets are all I'm interested in. Except if we're using tranquilizer darts--he could have used one or two of those the day he ran away from us for 15 minutes as we were walking with my friend E on her property. Her dog was well-behaved and stood there looking confused as we ran off into the forest calling out for Fargo. We were scared out of our wits that he'd fallen down a hole (Timmy, Lassie's fallen down the well!). Don't you dare do that again you silly, silly dog!

On to gentler pursuits: The night before Christmas, we snuggled down into bed for the family tradition as Rita read us Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs. This book has seen better days, but we just can't bring ourselves to buy a new copy. This year, everyone partook in the ritual:

And the next morning: presents! Yes, I have a bow on my head. In the spirit of the holidays. Just go along with it and don't ask questions.

And then there's one of Rita's masterfully wrapped presents. Believe me, this snowman is tame compared to some of her creations:

And, lastly, the family photo. Each year, getting us all into formation is a taxing, exhausting and ridiculous enterprise punctuated by lots of griping and uncontrollable giggle fits. But in the end there's usually at least one good picture...out of about 4000 takes.

at least now I know what a flank steak is...

2007-02-13T01:15:00.000-05:00

The other night I had a fellow non-vegetarian over for dinner and made the best tacos in the entire world, and although I think it's safe to say that Food Fridays is now officially defunct, I definitely want to share this recipe with the world. It's funny because I don't eat meat that much--not only because April's a vegetarian but also because cooking meat is a pain and not worth the effort--and I'm not a huge fan of red meat (which is why I had to ask the Wegman's butcher what a flank steak was), but these tacos were killer (no pun intended, PETA).

So, without further ado:

Tacos Carne Asada
Recipe courtesy Tyler Florence and the Food Network
(The original food.com recipe also includes a pico de gallo. We had guacamole and mango salsa on our tacos instead. And we had fried plantains as an appetizer. Hmmm...oil and starch...yum...)

2 pounds flank or skirt steak, trimmed of excess fat
1 recipe Mojo, recipe follows
Olive oil, for coating the grill
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
16 (7-inch) corn tortillas
Shredded romaine or iceberg lettuce, for serving
Chopped white onion, for serving
Shredded Jack cheese, for serving
1/2 cup Pico de Gallo, recipe follows
2 limes, cut in wedges for serving

Lay the flank steak in a large baking dish and pour the mojo over it. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour or up to 8 hours, so the flavors can sink into the meat. Don't marinate the steak for more than 8 hours though, or the fibers break down too much and the meat gets mushy.

Preheat an outdoor grill or a ridged grill pan over medium-high flame (you can also use a broiler--this is what I did since it's winter and way too cold to grill). Brush the grates with a little oil to prevent the meat from sticking. Pull the steak out of the mojo marinade and season the steak on both sides with salt and pepper. Grill (or broil) the steak for 7 to 10 minutes per side, turning once, until medium-rare. Remove the steak to a cutting board and let it rest for 5 minutes to allow the juices to settle. Thinly slice the steak across the grain on a diagonal.

Warm the tortillas for 30 seconds on each side in a dry skillet or on the grill, until toasty and pliable.

To make the tacos, stack up 2 of the warm tortillas, lay about 4 ounces of beef down the center, and sprinkle with some lettuce, onion, and cheese. Top each taco with a spoonful of the Pico de Gallo salsa and garnish with lime wedges. Repeat with the remaining tortillas.

Mojo:
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeno, minced
1 large handful fresh cilantro leaves, finely chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 limes, juiced
1 orange, juiced
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1/2 cup olive oilIn a mortar and pestle or bowl, mash together the garlic, jalapeno, cilantro, salt, and pepper to make a paste. Put the paste in a glass jar or plastic container. Add the lime juice, orange juice, vinegar, and oil. Shake it up really well to combine. Use as a marinade for chicken or beef or as a table condiment.

giddy up or hiya, your choice

2007-01-17T23:25:00.000-05:00

So I just got back from horseback riding. Today I was on a crazy little pony named Ty. He's only 4 and is shorter than me (I'm just short and light enough that they sometimes have me ride some of the spunkier ponies), but boy can he jump! On the flat he was calm and sensitive and responsive--very sweet--but once we started jumping, he suddenly became feisty and over-excited, galloping up to every jump and leaping about twice as high as he needed to to clear them. Anyway, after coming home and having a shower, I remembered that I've been planning to post a few photos of my various athletic endeavors that my parents took when they came to visit in early December. Sure, having them join me (at my invitation) and videotape me at all my sporting events made me feel like a little kid again, but in a good way.

In any case, please bear with me (or feel free to skip ahead) while I do a little bit of show and tell:

First, my parents came with me to my horseback riding lesson on Wednesday (Nov. 29). Before the holidays I was riding a horse named Flight 101 (Flight, for short) a lot. He’s owned by a girl who went off to college and left her horse at the stable to be leased; my riding instructor tried to convince me to half lease Flight, but not only is the $300/month half lease a bit out of my price range, but I also don’t have the time (as much as I’d like to) to ride three times a week. I haven't ridden Flight since early December, so I imagine someone else agreed to lease him since then.

Flight’s an excellent horse—sometimes he fumbles a bit over fences, but only at first (like he’s nervous or, ha!, flighty). He’s really lovely under saddle. Even though I’m mostly doing hunter-jumper now, I still love riding a horse that has a sensitivity for basic dressage; he transitions seamlessly between a smooth sitting trot and a faster, more elongated posting trot and, even more unusual (for the horses I ride regularly), he has a great collected canter which makes it feel almost like he’s floating in place.

He jumps huge, as you can see from the second picture of his jump over the oxer, where I try in vain to stay with him but end up sitting on his back much more than I should (I should be stretched out with my hands up on his neck, not all hunched over). I prefer jumping Hughie, one of the stable’s horses, although his gaits are not nearly as refined as Flight’s; Hughie’s still challenging—he’s got a lot of power and certainly isn’t an automatic pilot kind of horse—but he’s more predictable over fences. For example, unlike Flight, you can be fairly certain Hughie will jump the fence in front of him and at a decent pace; Flight sometimes slows to a walk right in front of the jump and then jumps it anyway, which is disconcerting. But the day of the parental photo shoot, Flight was behaving himself, although I almost fell off when the horse and I had an argument about which way to turn after a jump and we nearly ran into a wall. All par for the course.

On Thursday, my parents came to my dojo to watch my karate and jiu-jitsu classes. I went to the brown belt class that night because the black belt class I usually go to is in the afternoons and I thought it would be easier on all of us to just go to two classes in a row (since jiu-jitsu's right after the brown belt class). We did some free sparring that night without protective gear (so no real punching or kicking, just light smacks).

After karate, we rolled out the mats for jiu-jitsu, which I've only been doing for about a year and a half (I think). Below I wrestle with one of the few other women in the class (there's 4 of us on a good day, but sometimes it's just one or two...often it's just me and a room full of guys).

In the above picture, I'm about to do an arm bar (one of many possible submissions--with this one you over-extend the shoulder and, well, it hurts) on one of the jiu-jitsu senseis. Don't be too impressed; he's probably defending at about 25% in order to let me practice different moves. One of the things that's great about jiu-jitsu is that technique is ultimately more important than sheer muscle strength, or so I'm told. While karate is my first love, I think jiu-jitsu might be the better sport for bare-bones, end-of-the-line self-defense since it's a lot about instinct and positioning--e.g. some positions are defensive, some offensive, and some safer or more vulnerable than others. When a 180-pound guy is about to choke you, it's good to have an instinctual sense of how to get away or at least how to defend yourself until you can knee him in the face and run away (not an option in class, of course). Since I watch way too much CSI and Law and Order, these are the things I think about.

Better yet, I could knee the attacker in the face and then ride away on my pony!

better than the sunday comics page

2007-01-15T12:23:00.000-05:00

As of the past 6 months or so, I've added the indulgence of webcomics to my ever-diversifying armory of procrastination techniques. While it began as a bit of a fancy, many of the comicistas out there on the internet are actually fantastic artists and have created compelling, fascinating and complicated worlds in their work. A word of warning, when you start with a new comic you’ll get this great rush of being able to read hundreds of pages of archived material. But, once you reach the end of what’s been written/drawn so far you will likely feel, as I did/do, very deprived as you wait for the next installment(s). Adis over at Count Your Sheep posts the most regularly (three to fives times a week), although his comic is also in a strip format (like newspaper comics) rather than a graphic novel, so it’s probably easier to produce those faster. Inverloch, Angels 2200, and Flipside are also pretty regular (two to three times a week). Alpha Shade, which is gorgeous and complex, has the longest lag between updates, so much so that the artists only just posted a regular update schedule on their site (although time alone will tell if they stick to it).

Here are a few of my favorites, in a vague sort of order. In order of my dedication, perhaps:

1. Count Your Sheep is a clever, fun, and cute comic by artist Adrian Ramos (known as Adis). It’s about a girl, her mother and their imaginary sheep, Ship, and is reminiscent of Calvin and Hobbes. I love this strip, and it’s actually a marvel to me that, despite frequent attempts, Adis hasn’t yet managed to get his work syndicated or published somewhere. I think Count Your Sheep is far more interesting and more intelligent than many of the comics you find in, say, The Washington Post.

2. I' m not sure how to describe Alpha Shade because I'm not always entirely sure I know what's going on myself, there's so much going on at once. But this isn't a bad thing. It's gorgeously-rendered and the characters are intriguing and enigmatic. At the stage it's in right now, it's hard to glean the scope of the entire narrative; I've only gathered enough to know that one of the central characters--a pretty typical American 20-something--has become trapped(?) in a parrell universe and finds herself commander of an army. Or something. I don't think my description does Alpha Shade any favors, but if you read it you'll understand why I'm at a loss.

3. Inverloch is a fantasy-adventure story set in a world that's vaguely reminiscent of RPGs I played as a pre-teen, except the characters, setting and social architecture are much more realistically conceived. There's racism and sexism and greed and vanity, and the story is really as much a social allegory as it is a fantastical narrative. And besides, Acheron, one of the main characters, is adorably cute and cuddly.

4. Angels 2200 is a futuristic sci-fi comic set in a world where most of the men have been killed by some sort of plague. It's alternatively amusing and heartbreaking and while it's full of feminine stereotypes, the artists are also meticulous about breaking them whenever possible.

5. Flipside is possibly the weirdest comic I've ever read. About a female jester, a female would-be knight and their adventures, it definitely falls under the fantasy category. A word of warning: while funny and kooky, it's also a bit risque (occassionally in an obviously prurient way) and sometimes quite violent, but intriguing all the same.

Also, check out the Buzz Comics rankings to find more great webcomics if you, like me, are looking for entertaining procrastination.

Okay, back to actual work now. No. Really.

maui sunset, finally finis

2006-12-27T19:42:00.000-05:00

First of all: Merry [insert holiday of choice here] to everyone, and a happy New Year! I'm in Virginia visiting my parents, with April, Fargo and Jezebel in tow, of course. So far adventures include the great present unwrapping marathon and riding on Fred's motorcycle (both with and without him--whoever heard of a father encouraging his daughter to learn how to ride a bike!).

Now that I've got a little time to spare, it being winter break and all, I wanted to complete the Maui picture saga. Holiday pictures will be posted as well, but I wouldn't be too shocked if you have to wait a little while for those. I seem to perpetually be a month to a month and a half behind with my blog updates.

Soooo...in the last post, I left off with Amy and Mike's beautiful wedding. After that, April and I stayed on the island for another few days to just relax, soak up the sun and go snorkeling at every possible free moment.

Feeling a bit adventurous, on Wednesday (Nov. 8) we decided to brave the Hana Highway, which traverses the North coast of the island: 52 miles of one-lane bridges, mountainous roads, sharp drop-offs, and over 600 curves (it takes about 3 hours each way from Kahului to Hana in the east).

Of course, we had to make a number of stops on the way--moments of touristy glory gleaned from various magazines and tour guides. After peering over the cliffs off the coast of Paia at the windsurfers (the North coast of Maui is known as one of the top windsurfing sites in the Pacific, or so we were told), we stopped off at a little roadside pull-off where friends of Amy's parents had told us where to access Twin Falls. The walk from the road to the falls was about a mile and the falls themselves were pretty but not spectacular, but the old, Tolkien-esque tree that grew near them was worth the stroll.

On the way back from Hana later in the afternoon, we stopped off at the same roadside fruit stand (near the entrance to the path to the Falls) again to buy a coconut. After drinking all its milk from a straw, the teenager who had sold us the coconut chopped it in half with a machete so we could eat the flesh, too. Yummy coconut--Swiss Family Robinson, here we come!

There were also many scenic viewpoints, with pull-outs that could fit only a car or two—we made the mistake of planning on stopping at many of these on the way back from Hana, but by then it was later in the afternoon and each pull-out, especially near the bridges, was packed full with tourists (some of which should have been told that parking in a curve on a road that is barely two lanes is stupid, stupid, stupid).

In the photo below, April and I managed to squeeze into on of the scenic viewpoints and engaged in a friendly photo-taking exchange with another couple. Typical of vacations, it’s one of the few pictures of us together from the trip.

Once in Hana and its environs the real adventuresome exploring began. Hana is a little town nestled into the Eastern coast. There’s one gas station, a couple of bed and breakfasts, a tacky gift shop, a general store, and a pretty, well-kept state park (friends of ours rented cabins in the state park last year and loved it, but I’m not sure if I’d enjoy being that far removed from the rest of the island). Also, there’s Hana’s famous black sand beach, Waianapanapa; April and I took a stroll there, digging our toes in as well as discovering a little seaside cave where the waves occasionally caused water to shoot out a hole in the top like a blowhole.

From the black sand beach, we went off in search of the mysterious and beautiful red sand beach, Kaihalulu, which, had I not read about in a tour guide and online (and gotten detailed instructions on how to find it), we never would have seen. Getting to this secretive beach entailed parking on a side street, walking through the backyard of a bed and breakfast, climbing down a grassy hill (ignoring “no trespassing” signs), and emerging on a lesser beach, where the sand was a brownish red. From there we followed a hilly and mildly treacherous path (flip-flops did not provide adequate footing) up one side of a cliff face and down the other. Of course, wanting to document our journey, I took picture of the beach from the crest of the hill, though we did wander down and spent some time walking its short length and wading in the crystal clear water.

Apparently, the red sand beach is a place for snorkelers, if the weather is right, and I could definitely believe that considering I could see fish from the beach. However, we later read that snorkeling at this and other coves like it—where a pool of water is surrounded by rocky reefs—can also be quite dangerous for swimmers. It turns out that sharks often lurk just on the ocean-side of the rocks waiting for unsuspecting fish to be washed out from the relatively calm pool on the beach-side to the whirl and turmoil of the ocean.Occasionally, a shark wins the fish lottery and a swimmer washes out with the fish. Hmm...maybe some snorkeling is better left to professionals.

We returned from Hana exhausted—April was also a little harried from all that mountainous driving (since we had a rental car that I couldn’t legally drive), but recovered quickly—but pleased and settled in for another evening in Kihei. We had a fairly decent, though not spectacular meal at a bar/restaurant the name of which I cannot remember, and although the food was fairly good, the cockroach that scampered across our table at one point was not a pleasant dinner companion (to be fair, the restaurant was outdoors, making cockroaches much harder to blame on the management).

After dinner, we spent our second of two nights in our lovely bed and breakfast, What a Wonderful World B&B (we stayed in the Patio Suite, for anyone interested), and had an amazing meal the next day of apple pancakes smothered in coconut syrup, made by the owner and our hostess, Eva Tantillo. She was incredibly friendly and generous, allowing us to leave our luggage in her living room/lobby all day because our flight didn’t leave till midnight, even though we officially checked out late that morning. Her bed and breakfast was inexpensive (in relation to other comparable B&Bs in Kihei as well as most of the hotels), personal (only four rooms), spacious, and welcoming. I would recommend it to anyone (plus, I’m not alone: her B&B gets rave reviews on trip advisor).

April checks her email in our B&B room. That bed in the background was one of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever slept on.

Before jetting off at midnight on Thursday, we walked down the beach in Kihei to experience one more Maui sunset. Allow me one cliché: a perfect end to a perfect trip.

more fish in the sea

2006-12-17T19:58:00.000-05:00

As I sat down to prepare my final Maui post, I uncovered a few more cool fish pictures from our days of snorkeling. I thought I'd share them with the inter-world:

Our friend, the pufferfish. Unpuffed, and therefore very cuddly looking.

Two frolicking humuhumunukunuku-apua'as. I ended up getting a decent picture afterall, but you'll need to click to enlarge so you can get a better look.

And, the final beauty: a parrotfish. Even more gorgeous in person, but the photograph's not bad.

obama rama

2006-12-08T22:18:00.000-05:00

My new campaign bumper stickers:

the most diverse, but improbable: Obama/Clinton (except she'd never consent to a vice presidency)

the best: Gore/anyone (he could win again...)

the brightest: Gore/Obama (if only)

the beautiful: Stewart/Colbert

nipping at your nose...

2006-12-08T22:16:00.000-05:00

Ah...Adrian Ramos over at Count Your Sheep never fails to hit the nail right on the head:

.

i'm already nostalgic

2006-11-27T21:36:00.000-05:00

I bet you all thought I had vanished again for another few months, only to continue my Maui report under severe duress and threat of fingernail-pulling, and yet here I am. Anyway, onwards...

If you'll recall from the post before last, I left off on Friday, November 3rd, with April and I getting slowly broiled on the beach while we blissfully snorkelled around. That evening, after surveying and lamenting the sun damage, we changed into some nicer duds (even on Maui, bikinis and board shorts are not really deemed appropriate at a rehearsal dinner). So, at the rehearsal dinner we had our first chance to meet the extended families of the spouses-to-be -- naturally, everyone was lovely (not surprising since Amy and Mike are so great themselves). We ate at the Ma'alaea Grill, and the food was excellent; I had the Cajun blackened Mahi-Mahi and April had some beautifully rare Ahi tuna (plus, the appetizers--Manoa lettuce wraps, crab cakes, and incredible calamari--were to die for). Below, you'll find a picture of me, April, Amy, Mike (on the right) and Brad (the best man). At this point, we are pleasantly stuffed.

The next morning, we awoke with the chirpy birds to another bright and beautiful day and embarked on a caravan drive (with at least four cars and probably fifteen people) to West Maui, where Scott, Amy's brother, promised excellent snorkeling. We ended up north of Kapalua in Honolua Bay, and it was rather amusing to see several snorkeling ships anchored in the waters--while these people paid to be ferried to the Bay, we'd come there all on our own and only having to pay a few dollars to a young boy down the way whose family's property you had to cross to access the beach (they also maintained a surprisingly clean set of porta potties). Snorkeling was good, although the water was a little cloudy. Still, we flippered around for a good hour (after which my ankels were very sore...I actually wasn't totally thrilled about the idea of swimming back to shore from the middle of the Bay--but staying there to drown wasn't really an option).

From Honolua Bay, we drove back down the Western Coast to Kaanapali, where we had lunch--still partially in our bathing suits (with soggy t-shirts over our tops and damp board shorts)--at the Hula Grill. The food was pretty decent, though over-priced for what we got (but what do you expect on a resort beach?). In contrast, when April and I drove to Lahaina later that same evening to meet up with the rest of the gang (all of whom had gone to see Ulalena, a cirque-de-soleil-like production about Hawaiian history and traditions), we had an excellent meal that was quite inexpensive at a small stand-type "restaurant" in The Wharf Cinema Center on Front Street. It's called The Banyan Bistro, and I highly recommend it if you're in Maui; the falafel was wonderful (and if you don't want to take my word for it, here's a little review to tantalize you further). In any case, here's me standing in front of the koi pond in the Center courtyard as we await our meal.

On Sunday, it was wedding day! April's sunburn had cooled enough that she was able to get her bridesmaid massage, and she, Amy and Amy's mom got their hair done up all pretty-like. After much primping and preening, we all headed off to the beautiful Seawatch Resort and Restaurant. The wedding was outside on the lawn, overlooking the most amazing sunset and beach view.

Doesn't April look so pretty?

Aww...

Nope, neither of these pictures have been Photoshopped--at all. It was really that beautiful...

After the wedding, all twenty-five of us (family and friends) settled down for a night of partying and eating (again, excellent crab cakes and a very good meal). There was much dancing and merriment late into the night. And I made the DJ play "Sex Machine" (thank you, Kate!) so all was well.

Monday morning, April and I began our "solo" stay in Maui, but those adventures will have to wait for another post because I'm sleepy and have much grading to do (ergh...students). I'll leave you all with another picture of our stunning condo view: April Writing Postcards, with Palm Trees and Sun.

sensei aviva

2006-11-11T21:05:00.000-05:00

On Monday and Wednesday of last week (October 30 and November 1), I endured several grueling hours of karate testing. And a very short while before we flew to Maui (our plane left Thursday at 6am and my testing ended at 9pm the night before), I was told that I had passed the rigourous requirements for the black belt test. These requirements include eight empty-hand katas (a prescribed series of movements and techniques envisioned as fight against multiple, imaginary enemies); three weapons katas (two with the bo--a type of quaterstaff--and one with sais--a pair of pronged short swords, famously used by Raphael, the teenage mutant ninja turtle, and by Gabrielle in the later seasons of Xena: The Warrior Princess); a empty-hand series of prearranged sparring (with two people), called Yakusoku Kumite; a prearranged weapons Kumite, with bos; free sparring; history and terminology; and basic technique--all in front of five black belts of 4th degree rank or higher.

In class today (the first class since I've been back in town) at my dojo, after 3 1/2 years of training in Isshin-Ryu Karate , I received my first degree black belt. My teacher called me "Sensei" as I left the building. This was exceedingly satisfying even though I know that this is only the first, very small, step in my karate education. I've been told that once you receive your black belt it's like starting all over again--the eternal student.

In other news of athletic achievements, April ran the Chicago Marathon on October 22 in support of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and Team-in-Training. She ran for her grandmother, Mollie Miller, finished the 26.2 miles in 4 hours 4 minutes, and was still running strong at the end of the race (she actually sprinted the last 800m). Go April Go!!!

humuhumu-nukunuku-apua'a

2006-11-10T23:03:00.000-05:00

Well, April and I have just returned from Maui, and I have many pretty pictures to share. Yes, I know, we're very lucky. But I can also say that there is nothing more depressing than leaving 82 degree weather, sunny skies, and walks along the beach at sunset to return to dreary, grey Rochester in the driving rain. Blah. April and I were coerced (twist my rubber arm, why dontcha) into flying to Maui by our friends Amy and Mike, who wisely decided that this lovely tropical island would be a fabulous place for their wedding. And boy, were they right.

So, last Thursday (Nov. 2), April and I packed up our bags and hopped onto the first of three flights to trek our way across the continent and beyond. The first two flights (Rochester to Pittsburgh and then Pittsburgh to Los Vegas) were relatively calm and as comfortable as being squeezed in a small metal box can be. The third flight, six plus hours across the Pacific, was awful (despite the fact that we practially had the whole plane to ourselves)--we literally had turbelence (and not just mild turbence either) for the full last 4 hours of the flight with little reprieve; they turned off the 'fasten seat belt' sign for about an hour before it went back on and glowed for the rest of the flight--even our flight attendants had to sit down. While that was a rather inauspicious beginning, Maui was wonderful. Perhaps "bad flight, good vacation" should become a new tagline to comfort people after their journey across the not-so-friendly skies.

We arrived on Thursday to pouring rain and encroaching darkness and, though we narrowly missed a big storm that had been raging on and off for the past few days, the weather the entire week we were there was perfect (this makes up for the rainy week in Paris, I think). Despite the rain and slightly confusing directions, we made it to our snug little condo in Ma'alea Harbor (on the southwest side of the island).

Friday, we started our day with coffee with Amy and Mike on the porch of our condo (one of many rented by Amy's parents for the wedding party and guests and also shared with Mike's best man, Brad, a kiwi farmer from California).

{For those who know my night-owlish ways, you'll be shocked to learn that almost everyday in Maui I was up by 7:30 at the latest. I attribute it to the time change--just makes it easier to get up earlier. Of course, blue skies and palm trees, and chirping birds help, too.}

Though we rented our own car, in order to get a sense of the island, we spent Friday morning with Amy and Mike. First, we went to Maui Dive Shop to rent snorkel gear for the week--not only did the woman at the counter give us a great deal (two sets for the price of one), this was by far the best investment we made during the trip. After that, a fabulous breakfast at Stella Blues Cafe in Kihei (city just to the south of Ma'alea)-- I had the Banana Macadamia Nut pancakes with coconut syrup. Best pancakes I've ever had. Next, we accompanied Amy and Mike to get their marriage license, mostly to save time, after which they dropped us off at a beach near Wailea. Now, since we were following Amy and Mike, I have no idea which beach this was (although we were able to find it again on our own later in the week). Maui has over 30 miles of beaches, so my confusion as to exactly where we were is justified.

We thought we were only going to be at the beach for a short time while Amy and Mike ran some errands, but by the time they came back for us we were having so much fun that they left us there. Since we had followed them in our car, we weren't by any means stranded, but we hadn't brought any sunscreen (stupid, stupid--though in our defense it was rainy in the morning and we hadn't realized how sunny and hot it would be by late in the day). This proved to be a huge mistake, as both April and I got sunburnt; I turned a bit purple and itched a few days later, but April turned bright as a lobster and her whole back pealed off in the last few days were on the isle. Poor thing.

Part of what fascinated us so on the beach and ocean that day wereits amazing reefs and the undeniable appeal of breathing underwater (snorkeling is my new favorite hobby, although it's a lot easier to burn when you're floating on your stomach in the water because you can't feel the heat of the sun scorching your back). At the dive shop, we were given this plastic fish identification card, which had lots of colorful little creatures on it that we were sure we wouldn't actually see ourselves. But little did we know that plop down in the water virtually anywhere in Maui where there are rocks and reefs, and you'll find fish. Lots of fish.

Unfortunately, while the Fuji underwater cameras we bought were great, some of the brilliant colors of the fish didn't come out so well in the relative murk of the water. Nevertheless, I'm posting some of my favorite underwater camera photos below (There's one more set of underwater photos currently being developed; I have hopes they'll be better because I tried to get very close to the fish when I took their pictures--the fish were wary but not too perturbed--I'll post those tomorrow if they turned out.)

My favorite fish was the humuhumu-nukunuku-apua'a (aka the reef triggerfish); the unofficial state fish of Hawai'i, they're plentiful in the shallow reefs. The murky pictures I've developed so far didn't do them justice, but this is what they really look like (below). I love the humuhumu-nukunuku-apua'a (not as much fun to type as to say) and stalked them through the ocean trying to get a decent picture (unfortunately, they swim much faster than me).

Since this post is getting rather long, I'll save the rest of the vacation update, including the beautiful wedding photos for another post. On a closing note, April and I were also very lucky (on the many days we snorkeled) to come across a number of sea turtles (at least 5 or 6 different ones)--even a couple huge, old ones covered in barnacles. We tried not to disturb them too much while still getting close enough to get a good look. On Friday, one approached me--whether to greet me as a fellow creature of the sea or to chase me away, I'm not so sure--and I screamed, floundered and got water in my snorkel. I'm not sure what I thought it was going to do to me, but this is not the way to calmly approach sea turtles. After that the two we had been observing hid from us, and I really I don't blame them at all.

a long, long time ago, I can still remember...

2006-10-31T20:43:00.000-05:00

Many times now, I have promised a back-dated photojournal of our trip to Paris, London and on the QM2. Sadly, it has taken me 4 months to deliver, and now I'm copping out again. Truth be told, there's no point for me to write a long description of our trip and post all the pretty pictures because April already did all the work for me (and more eloquently than I could muster at the moment. So, if you're still interested in the trip from last May and June, please refer to the following, excellent and thorough, entries in April's blog:

* Six Days in Paris, Part 1
* Visiting Paris Part Two: A Marathon First Day
* Museums and Monuments
* Shopping and Spelunking
* From Railway Stations to Palaces

See also, her shorter post about the QM2.
How's that for a well-executed cop-out?

soapbox

2006-10-26T23:04:00.000-04:00

I have been negligent in posting, I know. There is no excuse. But rest assured that attending to my lost and lonely blog is one of many things on my to do list. For now, I have a political message, commentary made by Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. You can read and watch it on their webpage. It is brilliant:

The Beginning of the End of America

Now back to your regularily scheduled programming.

Canada Cross-Country, August 2006

2006-07-30T18:43:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I had all these bold and grand notions that the rest of July would afford me plenty of time get caught up on everything on my to do list. And first and foremost on that list was a directive to myself to "Get it together, kid. No. Seriously. I'm talking to you!" and post my photos and tall tales from our lovely May in Europe. Obviously, that never happened. But part of me--hope springs eternal--is still convinced that I'll post those pictures and that travel narrative floating about my head (but getting fainter and fainter everyday) eventually. Actually, I was thinking about doing it tonight, but my computer crashed last week and, since I had to reset everything to factory settings, I haven't yet reinstalled Photoshop; for some reason that seems like a great deal of work right now, just so I can resize some pictures for your viewing enjoyment. So it'll have to wait. Again. But, if you're eager to see some photos while you're waiting for me to get my act together, check out April's Blog (you'll find the travel "diary" in the June entries). That girl is on the ball.

I do, however, have one picture for show and tell today. Below, I present to you our route from Rochester to Calgary. On Tuesday, April and I will be packing up the car and the dog, leaving the rest of the menagerie in the capable hands of our friend Dinah, and begin the 4-day drive to Alberta, where we'll stay with her parents for about 2 weeks, before packing everything up again and coming back. We have myriad AAA campbooks (since we're camping in between each 10-12 hour day of driving), tour guides, maps and a triptik. We decided it would be more interesting to take different routes there and back, so we'll travel to Calgary through Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan and then our return trip will take us through Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. We're particularily looking forward to taking a picture of Fargo in front of the Fargo, North Dakota city sign!

bon voyage

2006-05-13T11:12:00.000-04:00

Just a quick post to say that I'm leaving for my European vacation in an hour! Have a wonderful May, and I'll plan a big long picture post for when I return. :)
xoxo

busy bee

2006-05-07T23:36:00.000-04:00

I promise I'm not intentionally ignoring anyone. Really and for true. I just have less than a week until I leave for Europe and still so much to do...

Last night, at 11pm and after grading all of my students' research papers, April and I made ourselves cranberry martinis (2 oz. cranberry juice, 1 1/2 oz. vodka or gin--I like mine with gin--and a splash of lemon or lime juice). I posted my grades this morning, and I have to say that I hope my students count themselves lucky because there were far too many B+s in my class. Unfortunately, I can't just make up grades, so I had to go with what the numbers said. Next time, I'll have to figure out what about my grading rubric is inflating my grades. (Maybe my students were just unusually good writers this semester? Nah.)

I just wrote a ridiculously detailed outline of my L Word paper (color-coded: blue for what's already there, red for things I need to add/cut/reframe/revise/make-sound-less-stupid), so maybe I'll work on that for a little while before I go to bed. And then I have to get up at 8am to show some of my fellow students how to use Dreamweaver so they can publish the upcoming issue of Invisible Culture without my help next week.

In other news, I'm soooo looking forward to my trip. (But not looking forward to flying.)

Food Fridays #9

2006-04-28T21:41:00.000-04:00

Finally…Part Three of the Eggplant Parmesan Pizza recipe that starts with the Basic Pizza Dough with Italian Herbs and the World’s Best Pizza Sauce. The dough and sauce can, of course, be made separately or together for a myriad of delicious pizzas.

If you’re ambitious enough to attempt the whole Eggplant Parmesan Pizza recipe, make sure to read the whole thing before beginning. The recipe has five parts: the dough, the tomato sauce, the white sauce, the eggplants, and the pizza assembly. It cuts down on the cooking time significantly if you overlap different parts of the recipe (for example, make the sauces and drain the eggplants while the dough rises etc.…). You can, of course, also just use parts of this recipe to make other pizzas.

I also recommend making this for a group of friends, because it’s a good bit of work and you’ll want to share the yummy results!

Eggplant Parmesan Pizza

Basic Pizza Dough with Italian Herbs
World’s Best Pizza Sauce

White Sauce

3 tbsp. unsalted butter
3 tbsp. all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. freshly ground white pepper

In a heavy saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the flour, whisk briskly to blend until smooth, and cook, stirring about 2 minutes; do not brown. Add the milk all at once and whisk until very smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer, stirring frequently, until thickened, 20 to 25 minutes. Pour the sauce into a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap placed directly on the surface to prevent skin from forming, and set aside.

Eggplant Pizza

2 pounds globe eggplants, peeled and sliced crosswise about ½ inch thick
all-purpose flour for dredging eggplants
equal portions vegetable oil and olive oil for frying
salt
freshly ground black pepper
vegetable oil for brushing pizza pan or screen
olive oil, for brushing crust and drizzling on top
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (about 4 oz), Parmigiano-Reggiano is the best
about 30 small whole fresh basil leaves, or 3 tbsp. minced fresh basil or oregano

Sprinkle both sides of the eggplant slices with salt and place on paper towels. Cover with more paper towels and place a wooden board or heavy weight (evenly distributed) on top of the eggplant slices and paper towels for 30 minutes to draw out moisture.
Meanwhile, prepare the White Sauce and the Tomato Sauce.

Rinse the eggplant slices and pat dry with paper towels. Dredge lightly in flour. Pour equal portions olive oil and vegetable oil into a sauté pan or heavy skillet to a depth of 2 inches, and heat over medium-high heat. Add as many of the eggplant slices as will fit comfortably without crowding the pan and brown on both sides. Continue to cook, turning several times, until tender, about 5 minutes. Using a slotted utensil or tongs, transfer the eggplant to paper towels to drain; then season to taste with salt and pepper. Brown the remaining eggplant slices in the same manner, adding more oil as necessary to prevent sticking.

Brush pizza screen or ventilated pizza pan with vegetable oil; set aside. On a floured surface, roll out the dough and place on prepared screen or pan.

Brush the raw dough or the prebaked crust(s) all over with olive oil, then top with the eggplant slices, overlapping slightly and leaving a ½-inch border around the edges. Spoon the White Sauce over the eggplant; then top with the Tomato Sauce. Sprinkle with about ¾ cup of the cheese and drizzle evenly with olive oil.

Transfer pizza to the preheated oven, and bake until crust is crisp and the cheese and toppings are bubbly, about 8 minutes for prebaked crusts, or 10 to 15 minutes for fresh dough. Remove from the oven and lightly brush the edges of the crust with olive oil. Sprinkle with remaining cheese and the whole or minced herb leaves. Slice and serve immediately.

the wonders of the Interweb

2006-04-22T20:31:00.000-04:00

My two new favorite ~~time wasters~~ film-related websites:

Trailervision
(More fake movie trailers, but most of them are previewing original films that don't actually exist--some are political, some are hilarious, many of them are quite good.)

MovieRap.com
(Rappers write/rap film reviews)

Also, for those of you who, like me, are a little slow on the uptake and didn't see this when it first made the Underground Internet Circuit last fall, the Association of Independent Creative Editors had a competition for its assistant editors to see who could make a movie trailer with scenes from an actual film that made the film look like something completely different than it actually was (only soundtrack and voiceover could be altered). There was apparently quite a bit of buzz (even an article in the NY Times), but I missed it until now. Here are a couple of the (amazing) trailers. Context is everything, it seems:

Shining
(The Shining as a family drama)

Brokeback to the Future
(The Back to the Future trilogy as a love story)

West Side Story
(West Side Story as a zombie movie)

whack the mole

2006-04-22T18:29:00.000-04:00

(Don't ask about the subject line, even I couldn't tell you what it means.)

Tales of my abduction and dismemberment have been grossly exaggerated. Really. I promise.

I thought I'd pop in to tell anyone who's reading that I'm fine and still lurking around and still know that I owe many of you emails and about 18 Food Fridays and so much more. And you'll get all of that. Very soon, I hope. I finally feel like I have a little bit of time to myself this weekend so hopefully I'll get back on the ball (no promises though that I'll stay on the ball after that, but rest assured that my repeated absences do not mean I'm going away permanently or anything).

So, news from the past few weeks:

1. Last week I was in Atlanta, GA for five days for a the Popular Cultural Association Conference with April, her friend and her friends' fiancee. We gave our papers, we tooled around the city, we enjoyed the 85 degree weather, we ate at the Flying Biscuit Cafe, which is wonderful and (unfortunately) yet another restaurant in a far-flung city that I'm in love with. We also met up with several good friends who now live in Atlanta, so that made the whole trip twice as lovely.

2. When I returned, I had to comment on fifteen 4-9 page papers (they were drafts so their length varied greatly) in two days. That was a bit harrowing, but this is the last batch of papers I'll have to look at before May 3, when classes end and my students turn in their final research papers.

3. My car got broken into Tuesday night (in my driveway!), and I was awoken by the car alarm, which obviously scared off the potential theif. They broke one of the windows and then tried to open to the door (and set off the alarm). I didn't have anything in my car, so it was more of a hassle than anything else--calling the police to file a report, calling insurance, getting my window replaced, getting the damage to the window casing and door frame assessed, etc.

4. I volunteered to be on the Programming committee of our city's LGBT film festival (mostly because a friend told me to do it, but also because it's fun) in my copious free time, so I've been watching a lot of queer films in the past few weeks (some good, many very very bad).

(Now that I've listed the things I've been doing, it really doesn't seem like I've been doing all that much, but, damn, it sure feels like I've been going non-stop for weeks. Maybe it's just that certain things, like Atlanta and the grading, took up a lot of my time.)

Now on to the things that I'll be doing in the next few weeks
(a.k.a. Deadlines, Deadlines, Deadlines):

1.I have a karate tournament on May 6th. I'll try to compete in Jiu-jitsu, too, but I'm not sure if they'll let me since I'll be the only woman competing and all the guys are bigger than me. I understand the concern that I'll get crushed like a little bug, but I think it would be a good experience (competing, not getting crushed). Either way, I'll definitely compete in karate--kata, weapons, sparring. Last time we had a karate tournament, I didn't do as well as I'd hoped so I actually need to practice beforehand this time (not just frantically the night before). Also, last time I got the crap beat out of me in sparring because one guy had no sense of control (we don't spar full contact) and blasted me so hard in the stomach that he knocked me over...twice. The irony was that I still won that match because power/strength has nothing to do with scoring points, and he kicked me in the head hard enough that the judges called a foul (kicks to the head can get you a lot of points, but you're not allowed to make more than light contact to the head). So, near the end of the match when he kicked me in the head again, his second foul of the match turned into a point for me and I won. I think it was poetic justice, especially since by then I was crying (but still fighting) in spite of myself. Hopefully there will be none of that this time around.

2. I'm going to Germany and France on May 13th for three weeks. I'm very excited, except #s 3-6 below all have to be completed before I leave.

3. On May 3, I'll be getting fifteen 8-10 page research papers that will need to be graded by the following week.

4. My paper on the L Word is due back to the editor by May 15th (technically, 13th). Have I started my revisions? Not really...unless you count thinking about it.

5. My conference paper on the L Word for the National Women's Studies Association Conference is due on June 1st. But since I'll be out of town then, I need to get it done before I go. Luckily, it's similar to the paper I'm publishing (#4).

6. I have to get a revised copy of my dissertation proposal to my committe before I leave the country.

Okay, that's all for now. [/whiny post]

Food Fridays #8

2006-04-21T11:25:00.000-04:00

Part 2 of the three-part Food Fridays Eggplant Parmesan Pizza extravaganza (see also Part 1: Basica Pizza Dough with Italian Herbs).

I've gotten much lazier than I used to be when I first started making homemade pizzas a few years ago. That is to say that I rarely, if ever, make my own pizza dough by hand anymore (sometimes I buy it from the grocery store, sometimes I use April's bread machine). However, I always always always make my own pizza sauce...because this is the best pizza sauce in the world! And it's quite easy to make. Again, from James McNair's Vegetarian Pizza.

Basic Tomato Sauce

2 tbsp. olive oil
1 cup finely chopped yellow onion
½ cup finely chopped, peeled carrot
½ cup finely chopped celery
2 tsp. minced or pressed garlic
3 cups peeled, seeded, chopped, and drained ripe or canned tomatoes
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp. minced fresh basil or oregano (optional)
salt
freshly ground black pepper

In a saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot and celery. Cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables are soft but not brown, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic, tomato, and vinegar. Increase the heat to high and bring to a boil. Then reduce the heat to medium, and cook until thickened and most of the liquid evaporates, about 10 minutes. Stir in the herbs (if used) about 5 minutes before the sauce is done. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Transfer sauce to food processor with metal blade or to a blender. Process to a coarse puree. Set aside for immediate use, or cover and refrigerate for up to 4 or 5 days.

Food Fridays #7

2006-04-14T11:17:00.000-04:00

This is Part 1 of a three-part Food Fridays recipe for Eggplant Parmesan Pizza from the James McNair's Vegetarian Pizza cookbook. Both parts 1 and 2 can be used on their own to make really excellent pizza dough and pizza sauce, respectively.

Basic Pizza Dough with Italian Herbs

1 tbsp. granulated sugar
1 cup warm (110˚ to 115˚ F) water
1 envelope (¼ oz.) active dry yeast
3 ¼ unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
¼ cup olive oil, preferably extra-virgin
3 tbsp. minced fresh herbs or 1 tbsp. crumbled dried herbs (optional)

In a small bowl, dissolve the sugar in the warm water. (Water should be warm, but not hot or it will kill the yeast.) Sprinkle the yeast over the water and stir gently until it dissolves. When yeast is mixed with the water at the right temperature, a smooth, beige mixture results. (If the yeast clumps together and the water stays clear, discard and start over with new yeast.) Let mixture stand in warm spot until a thin layer of creamy foam covers the surface, about 5 minutes, indicating that the yeast is effective.

To mix and knead the dough by hand, combine 3 cups of flour with the salt in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center of the flour and pour in the yeast mixture and the oil. Using a wooden spoon, vigorously stir the flour into the well, beginning in the center and working towards the sides of the bowl, until the flour is incorporated and the soft dough just begins to hold together.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Dust your hands with four and knead dough gently and thoroughly. While kneading, very gradually add just enough of the remaining ¼ cup flour until the dough is no longer sticky or tacky; this should take about 5 minutes. Add herbs, if desired. Continue kneading until the dough is smooth, elastic, and shiny, 10 to 15 minutes longer. Knead the dough only until it feels smooth and springy; too much kneading can result in a tough crust.

After mixing and kneading, shape dough into a ball and place it in a well-oiled bowl, turning to coat completely on all sides with oil. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place until doubled in bulk (approx. 45 minutes for quick-rising yeast or 1 to 1 ½ hours for regular yeast).

Preheat oven to 500˚F about 1 hour before assembling pizza.

As soon as the dough has doubled in bulk, use your fist to punch it down to prevent overising (my favorite part!). Squeeze the dough into a ball, pressing out all the air bubbles. To prepare the dough for shaping, pull the top of the dough and tuck all seams under the bottom to create a ball with a smooth top. This will make a 15- to 16-inch pizza.

Shape the pizza with a rolling pin until it is about ¼ inch thick or by slow and careful stretching. (If stretching, you may want to knead the pizza again for a minute.) Work on a floured surface, and then transfer pizza to a vented pizza pan or pizza screen. Do this right before you are ready to put the ingredients on the pizza.

Food Fridays #6

2006-04-07T21:47:00.000-04:00

These are positively the best cookies in the world. April loves them, I love them, people regularily approach me and say "When are you going to make Snickerdoodles again?" Even my dog likes them. (He once stole about seven of them off the table at a party. We weren't particularily pleased [read: furious], but he was bouncing off the walls for hours).

The key to these delectable cookies is to follow the directions (really) and actually take the cookies out of the oven after 8-10 minutes (depending on the size of the cookie). I used to always make the mistake of leaving the cookies in longer because I thought they weren't done, and so my Snickerdoodles were always brittle and hard. But one day I decided I would actually follow Betty Crocker's instructions and, lo and behold, they were glorious. So, the cookies will be gooey and exceptionally soft when you take them out the oven. Handle them with care when you take them off the baking sheet, and you'll have perfect cookies once they cool (with a slightly crispy rim and a soft center). Oh, and don't try to make a half recipe. It won't work, and it will make you very sad when your cookies are hard little mounds of dough.

This recipe is from an ancient version of the Betty Crocker cookbook (and is not in more recent versions); my mother's copy is literally in pieces and stained with sugar and vanilla flavoring. Also, be forewarned that these cookies are definitely not low-fat. Butter and shortening? Is that really necessary? But that's what makes them so gooood.

Snickerdoodles

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Mix thoroughly butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar and the eggs. Blend in flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Shape dough by rounded teaspoons into balls.

Mix 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon; roll balls in mixture. Place balls 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set. Immediately remove from baking sheet.

About 6 dozen cookies.

Food Fridays #5

2006-03-31T21:45:00.000-05:00

The first time I made this was for a study group I was part of while I was getting my MA. Seven of us met weekly to study the entirety of Gaardner's History of Art because we were responsible for all 1000 or so images in that book for our MA Slide Exam. Considering that we spent more time laughing, eating and asking each other how to spell "sarcophagus" then actually studying, it's fortunate that the professors must have graded the Exam like we were kindergarteners ("Oh, she got the time period right within a century and described the painting in great detail--even though she didn't know its title or artist or anything about it otherwise. Give her full credit; her description was pretty.")

All that said, this bread is incredibly good. And if you eat it right after it comes out of the oven (which you should) it has this amazingly crispy outer crust with a soft, warm, doughy inside (because of the onion). It's from a cookbook called Fat-Free Cooking (and, yes, it's pretty low-fat, as is most bread that isn't full of, say, cheddar).

Olive and Oregano Bread

1 1/4 cups warm water
1 tsp. dried yeast
pinch of sugar
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/3 cup pitted black olives, coarsely chopped
1 tbsp. black olive paste
1 tbsp. chopped fresh oregano
1 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
(you may substitute 1-2 tsp. of dried herbs, if you wish)

Put half the warm water in a cup and sprinkle the yeast on top. Add the sugar and allow to stand for 10 minutes. Heat the olive oil in a small frying pan and fry the onion gently until golden brown.

Sift the flour in a mixing bowl with the salt and pepper. Make a well in the center; and add the yeast mixture, the fried onion (with the oil), the olives, olive paste, herbs and remaining water. Gradually incorporate the flour; and mix into a soft dough, adding a little extra water if necessary. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes, until smooth and elastic. Place in a mixing bowl, and cover with a damp dish towel. Leave in a warm place to rise for about 2 hours, until the dough has doubled in bulk. Lightly grease a baking sheet.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead again for a few minutes. Shape into an 8inch round and place on the prepared baking sheet. Using a large sharp knife, make crisscross cuts over the top. Cover and let stand in a warm place for 30 minutes until well risen. Preheat oven to 425˚F.

Dust the loaf with a little flour. Bake for 10 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 400˚F. Bake the 20 more minutes, or until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped underneath. Transfer to wire rack and allow to cool slightly before serving.

Food Fridays #4

2006-03-24T23:11:00.000-05:00

As promised, last week's absolutely delicious fish and chips meal. An indulgence, sure, but so worth it. Really.

Crispy Horseradish-Battered Fried Fish

Vegetable Oil, for frying
2 1/2 cups complete pancake mix (the kind that needs only water)
1 heaping tablespoon prepared horseradish
2 pounds fresh cod, cut into 4- to 6-ounce pieces
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Pour about 2 inches of vegetable oil into a large skillet. Place the skillet over a large burner and heat the oil over medium-high heat. To check if the oil is hot enough, drop in a 1-inch cube of white bread. The bread should be brown in a 40 count.

While the oil is heating up, make the batter for the fish. In a wide mixing bowl (or deep plate), combine 2 cups of the pancake mix, 1 1/4 cups water, and the horseradish. Place the remaining 1/2 cup of pancake mix in another wide mixing bowl (or deep plate). Arrange the batter and the bowl of dry pancake mix near the cooktop and the heating oil. Line a plate with a few sheets of paper towels and keep it within reach.

Season the fish with salt and pepper, then toss it in the dry pancake mix, coat evenly, and shake off the excess. The pancake mix will help the batter stick to the fish. Add the fish to the batter, flipping it around in the batter with a fork. You want the fish to be completely coated. Remove the fish from the batter, carefully place it in the hot oil, and fry for 4 to 5 minutes on each side, until deep golden. Remove from the oil and drain on the paper towels.

French Fries

4 large or 6 medium baking potatoes, such as Idaho or Russet, peeled
Vegetable oil as needed
Salt to taste

Cut the potatoes into any shape you like (I like my fries medium thick). Rinse in a few changes of water, then soak in ice water while you heat the oil.

Place the vegetable oil to a depth of at least 3 inches in a large, deep saucepan over medium-high heat. Heat it to a temperature of 375 degrees Fahrenheit. (I didn’t have a proper thermometer, so I just guessed, but they turned out fine. Basically, the oil needs to be very hot.)

Drain the potatoes and dry them well; drop them, a handful at a time, into the oil. After the first addition, turn the heat to high. Once they are all in, turn the heat to medium. Fry the potatoes in one batch, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes, or until the majority of them have begun to brown. Turn the heat to low (or turn it off if you’re going to wait to fry them again) and drain the potatoes on paper towels or a paper bag; they will be pale and soggy. If you like, you can allow them to rest here for up to 1 hour before proceeding.

Raise the heat to high and bring the oil to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Put the potatoes back in the oil and cook, stirring now and then, until brown and crisp, just a couple of minutes. Drain on paper towels or paper bags, season with salt, and serve immediately.

* * * * * * * * * *
The fish recipe comes from Rachael Ray's 365: No Repeats and the recipe for the fries is from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything (if you don't own it already, go buy a copy now--it's one of the best all-around cookbooks out there). I did the first stage of potato frying before cooking the fish and then let the fries sit as Bittman suggests while I cooked the fish. And then I threw the fries in the oil for the second, shorter frying right before the fish was done. Make sure to use enough oil in the fish pan so that the fish does not touch the bottom of the pan (but rather floats in the oil), otherwise the batter will stick to the bottom of the pan and the fish will fall apart when you try to take it out of the pan. For the fries I used a big pot full of oil (this is for those of us who don't have deep fryers!) and for the fish I used a deep frying pan. You'll need about a gallon of oil between the fries and the fish...just a warning.

Make sure to have tartar sauce and lemons and/or malt vinegar on hand for the fish. And whatever your fancy for the fries (I like ketchup mixed with a couple teaspoons of curry).

overcoming inertia through the magic of chemistry

2006-03-18T21:49:00.000-05:00

I was feeling overwhelmingly sluggish today (I would even describe myself as "sloth-like," doing everything at 10-20%) and so I decided to buy Coke's new soft drink/energy soda, Vault at the grocery store this afternoon. And, um, wow. I had three-quarters of the bottle (a normal 20 oz. bottle, not a liter or anything!) about three hours ago and the last few swallows about 20 minutes ago, and I'm completely wired. Earlier, I was talking non-stop. Now, I can't seem to stop blinking.

I am both fascinated and disturbed. I certainly don't feel sloth-like anymore, but I'm not sure I have the willpower to channel all this excess energy into something productive. I also can't be completely confident that everything I'm writing right now won't read like complete jibberish in the morning, since my brain is working too fast for me to concentrate on one word at a time in an ordered sequence--you know, what we usually call reading.

Food Friday #3

2006-03-17T23:44:00.000-05:00

In honor of St. Patrick's Day and Friday in general, I made fish and chips tonight for April and her friend. It was ridiculously good, if I do say so myself--I used a Rachael Ray recipe for the fish and a Marc Bittman recipe for the fries. It was also ridiculously unhealthy (the most healthy part of the meal being the oil and vinegar-based cole slaw), and now the entire house smells like oil. But, no matter. I think next week I'll at least post the recipe for the fries (okay, maybe the fish too), since they were relatively easy to make and very good, but I didn't have time tonight to type up all the recipes.

Instead, I leave you with a really lovely pasta dish (also part of last month's Valentine's Day meal along with the Chocolate Lava Muffins). This Rachael Ray dish is very simple (not terribly low-cal, though) and excellent. The cream sauce is tomato-based and tastes quite light and refreshing considering it's full of cream, or maybe it's the vodka that makes this sauce so delicious.

"You Won't Be Single For Long" Vodka Cream Pasta
(recipe also available here)

This recipe will make enough for 4 people. If serving only 2, reserve half the sauce to freeze for another supper before the addition of basil, and only cook 1/2 to 2/3 pound of penne.

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, once around the pan in a slow stream
1 tablespoon butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 shallots, minced
1 cup vodka
1 cup chicken stock
1 can crushed tomatoes (32 ounces)
Coarse salt and pepper
16 ounces pasta, such as penne rigate
1/2 cup heavy cream
20 leaves fresh basil, shredded or torn

Crusty bread, for passing

Heat a large skillet over moderate heat. Add oil, butter, garlic, and shallots. Gently saute shallots for 3 to 5 minutes to develop their sweetness. Add vodka to the pan, 3 turns around the pan in a steady stream will equal about 1 cup. Reduce vodka by half, this will take 2 or 3 minutes. Add chicken stock, tomatoes. Bring sauce to a bubble and reduce heat to simmer. Season with salt and pepper.
While sauce simmers, cook pasta in salted boiling water until cooked to al dente (with a bite to it). While pasta cooks, prepare your salad or other side dishes.

Stir cream into sauce. When sauce returns to a bubble, remove it from heat. Drain pasta. Toss hot pasta with sauce and basil leaves. Pass pasta with crusty bread.

home again

2006-03-14T23:58:00.000-05:00

So, I'm back home again after a ridiculously seamless and excellent NYC trip* which included, but was not limited to: seeing my favorite 7-year-old twins (who were not eager to see me go...their little teary eyes this morning almost made me want to change my flight); going to the Whitney Biennial (and randomly running into one of my fellow grad students there); meeting up with my friend Lisa (which was lovely) and her friend and eating the best vegetarian food I've had in a long time; having lunch with my friend T'ai.; going to Henrietta Hudson with Misa; going to see Anne Heaton (and having her ask me "have I met you before?" [which she had] when I asked her to sign my poster) at The Living Room, also with Misa; horseback riding in Central Park, on a horse named Nellie (whoa, Nellie!); shopping; eating Curried Duck Noodles and Black Sesame Ice Cream at Republic; and having my NYC direction sense suddenly improve by leaps and bounds.

That's it in a nutshell. Also, I finished a novel while I was away, which seems as much an accomplishment to me (since I haven't been reading fiction as much as I'd like) as the successful travel venture itself.

*The brilliance of my trip was only dampened a bit by three things: April couldn't join me this time because she had to work, Anna was out of town, and I almost died on the flight home. The latter was, obviously, the worst. I have travelled a lot in my life, and I can honestly say that I have never experienced worse turbulence in my life. About halfway through the flight, the plane lurched--really lurched, not just falling a bit in an air pocket, but jerking off to the side and tilting downward--so sharply that one of the flight attendants screamed (and you know it's bad if they react) and dropped a tray of cups and ice in the lap of several passengers. And then the approach into the airport was so rocky that I was convinced the pilot was going to say it was too windy to land and pull up, but he landed anyway, even though we hit the ground pretty hard and pretty wobbly. Not fun. But I'm alive. So. That's good, I guess.

Food Friday #2

2006-03-09T22:18:00.000-05:00

The next installment of Food Fridays--this one a bit early because I'm going to NYC tomorrow and won't be back till Tuesday.

I made these Chocolate Lava Muffins (an Alton Brown recipe, for anyone who watches Food Network)for Valentine's Day dessert this year, and they are truly incredible. They're also frighteningly easy to make, and so it's tempting to whip up a batch just to have around the house--except that they're basically pure chocolate and eggs and sugar, which isn't exactly healthy per se. Unless you count tastebud happiness as a part of your general mental well-being.

Chocolate Lave Muffins
(click here for the recipe on the Food Network site)

8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
1 stick butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
Butter, to coat muffin tin
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 cup vanilla ice cream
1 teaspoon espresso powder

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Place a small metal bowl over a saucepan with simmering water. Melt the chocolate and butter in the bowl. Stir in vanilla.

In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar, flour and salt. Sift these into the chocolate and mix well with electric hand mixer. Add eggs one at time, fully incorporating each egg before adding the next. Beat at high until batter is creamy and lightens in color, approximately 4 minutes. Chill mixture [I chilled these for approximately forty minutes--while we ate dinner--but I think they're only supposed to be chilled for as long as it takes you to coat the muffin pan. Either way works.]

Coat the top and each cup of the muffin tin with butter. Dust with the cocoa powder and shake out excess. Spoon mixture into pan using a 4-ounce scoop or ladle. Bake for 10 to 11 minutes. Outsides should be cake-like and centers should be gooey.

While muffins are in oven, melt the ice cream in a small saucepan. Stir in the espresso powder. Serve over warm muffins.

Yield: 1 dozen

dear rachael, please come live with us...

2006-03-04T21:46:00.000-05:00

I just bought a subscription to Everyday with Rachael Ray because what I really need in life is yet another cooking magazine. April thinks I'm a little crazy, but she's awfully indulgent of my whims when it comes to food-related things.

I would like to add that this is all my aunt Rhonda's fault! ;) If she hadn't shown me episodes of Rachael's cooking show two years ago at Thanksgiving, I would never have become so obsessed. Rachael Ray and Iron Chef America have me tuning in to the Food Network whenever I'm in the mood for TV and there's not a re-run of Law and Order or CSI on somewhere.

Food Fridays #1

2006-03-03T19:12:00.000-05:00

I've been planning to do this for a while now, but only just got my act together to post. As of now, watch this space every Friday (I'll try to post every week for now and see how it goes) for Food Fridays (sharing the joy of food). Each week, I'll post a recipe I've really enjoyed to share with you all. Some will be fairly easy, some may be a bit more time-consuming, but I'm not a gourmand so I doubt any will require obsure ingredients (no $100 truffles or anything) or excessive/complicated preparation (I generally don't choose recipes that require more skill then the basic preparatory skills: chop, blend, mix, stir, bake, fry, boil, etc.)

April and I both love to cook and, when we have the time and inclination (which is not as often as we'd like), we enjoy seeking out fun and interesting recipes from the Food Network, Epicurious, one of my Cooking Light magazines, her Bon Appetit subscription, or one of our myriad cookbooks. Whatever recipe I post, I'll make sure to let you know from whence it came.

I only ask that if you try one of the recipes and enjoy it (or if you don't), please comment and let me know!

Today's recipe comes from Epicurious.com (click here for the recipe on their site, with pictures). It's extremely easy to make. April made it for my birthday in late January, and we loved the recipe so much that we've been making it over and over again since then (although we usually make it without the mangoes because they're more expensive, but it's excellent with or without the mangoes). I think the dressing (and the avocado) is really what makes this salad so wonderful.

We substituted Welch's frozen berry mix juice concentrate for the passion fruit juice because our grocery store isn't fancy enough for frozen passion fruit juice. And, despite our early misgivings, the berry juice worked very well.

****

Avocado and Mango Salad with Passion Fruit Vinaigrette

3 tablespoons frozen passion fruit juice concentrate, thawed
3 tablespoons minced shallot
4 teaspoons Sherry wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds, coarsely cracked
3 tablespoons olive oil
8 cups herb salad mix (about 4 ounces)
1 large ripe mango, halved, pitted, peeled, sliced
2 small avocados, halved, pitted, peeled, sliced

Whisk first 5 ingredients in small bowl to blend; gradually whisk in oil. Season dressing generously with salt and pepper. Toss salad mix in large bowl with 1/4 cup dressing. Divide salad among 4 plates. Tuck mango and avocado into salad; drizzle some of remaining dressing over mango and avocado.

Makes 4 servings.

indulgence

2006-02-20T19:44:00.000-05:00

I’m starting my own meme, even though I’m well aware that the word “meme” cannot describe a single occurrence of a post. So go, re-post, tell your friends what you consider a luxury. Don’t make me a liar.

Top Ten Indulgences,
or these are a few of my favorite things

1. Buying and consuming antipasto as a meal, including some combination of the following: olives (stuffed or otherwise), French bread, expensive cured meats (prosciutto, hot coppa, Italian salami), expensive cheeses (teleggio, [fresh] goat cheese, brie, camembert, gruyere). And, of course, red wine.

2. Reading in a hot bath. (This is why Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has now been dropped in the water twice, but it’s a paperback so it’s still intact and readable.)

3. Splitting an entire bottle of Spanish champagne (sparking wine, for sticklers) with my girlfriend (I’m a big fan of Freixenet, which isn’t incredibly expensive but still very good.)

4. Sleeping in on a lazy Sunday morning. (Even better if April’s also sleeping in, which is a rarity since she’s much more of an early bird than I.)

5. Drinking a cup of Fortnum and Mason tea (preferably Assam Superb, English Breakfast, or Darjeeling) with sugar and a little cream. I love this anytime, but it’s especially comforting on a grey, rainy/snowy day. The effect of the tea is significantly augmented by cucumber sandwiches, but I don’t have the energy (nor do I ever have the ingredients on hand) to make these.

6. Spending an afternoon/evening/day rampantly watching an entire season (or as much as I can handle) of a television show, usually while simultaneously rearranging my furniture or my closet, while wrapping presents (around Christmas), while packing, while sick, or simply when I’m feeling incredibly lazy and indulgent. This was much easier to accomplish with Sex and the City, Newsradio and Neverwhere than when I tried to re-watch the entire second season of The L Word (with some fast-forwarding, I’ll admit) in one night or than I suspect it will be with Bad Girls or Firefly (longer episodes).

7. Writing silly postcards to friends wherein I quote long passages from plays, books or films without any explanation and then sign my name and stick them in the mail.

8. Making travel plans to visit friends without other academically (or fiscally) viable reasons for traveling (museums, theatre, conferences, etc.)—like visiting Chris in MN (where we spent five days watching CSI and going to the movies) or going to LA to spend time with Hilary and her Couch.

9. Cooking elaborate meals, often with several courses (at least salad, entrée and dessert) and a bonus if it takes me more than two hours to cook.

10. Making absurd lists with no inherent use-value of their own when I should be working (this includes memes, surveys, polls and to-do lists that I will never refer to again). Part and parcel of Number 10 is spending long hours on LJ (or otherwheres on the Interweb) reading/writing fan fiction and reading/writing blog entries.

a tedious to do

2006-02-16T09:19:00.000-05:00

To-do lists are curious and specious creatures. Everytime I strike something off, I believe for one, blissful second that I can rejoice in my achievment, and then at least five other pressing tasks seem to take its place, swirling up out of nowhere with malevolent determination. I find this frustrating. So very, very frustrating.

My to-do list as of yesterday morning:
1. Finish L-Word Paper

My to-do list now:
~~1. Finish L-Word Paper~~
2. Prepare for Class (by 12:30)
3. Call Vet/Pick up Cat
4. Clean house (in time for April's dissertation group tonight)
5. Grade Papers (over weekend)
6. Re-read and newly read some articles/books for my dissertation prospectus (begin over weekend)
7. Rewrite my dissertation prospectus (by February 27)

I mean really. How does it do that?

because everyone's my friend in new york city

2006-02-15T22:22:00.000-05:00

I'm uncommonly excited about going to NYC in a few weeks (mscalculus, did you get my email?!). The Whitney Biennial begins in March, I might finally see Wicked, and I'll get to visit some of my favorite people. How excellent. The only downside is that April won't be able to come with me, but she promises to plan a trip with me later in the spring/summer. So it's not so bad if her absence means I get to go twice in one season!

Speaking of visiting, if you're going to be in New York City between Friday, March 10th and Tuesday, March 14th, drop me a line.

adjective soup for the soul

2006-02-12T19:19:00.000-05:00

I'm quite intrigued by the pscyhology of the Johari window, so click on the link if you want to help me see how the "me"-experiment works out. :)

Aviva's Johari Window

beat the day

2006-02-12T19:16:00.000-05:00

In the spirit of good counsel, wonderful friends, productivity and general good cheer, I offer a panel of one of my favorite comic strips, Count Your Sheep. And to the artist of this strip, Adrian Ramos, should he ever happen into my LJ: no copyright infringement is intended. Consider this free publicity!

(Make sure to click on the image below for the full-sized version so you can actually read the speech ballons.)

imagine me & you

2006-02-04T18:35:00.000-05:00

So, April and I went to see a special preview of Imagine Me & You the other night, and the film's officially made it onto my (short) list of good lesbian romantic comedies. (This is a very short list...right now Saving Face [still my favorite] is the only other queer comedy I'm willing to own up to liking.) In any case, Imagine Me and You is definitely worth seeing. It's cute, it's funny (some definite laugh-out-loud moments), it's quirky, and the actors are excellent (with the British accents as a bonus for an Anglophile like me). One important note: I'm a huge fan of the typical sweet, sometimes silly romantic comedy; don't go to the cinema under the (false) impression that because it's an "independent" film that it's going to break the boundaries of genre convention. Imagine is a bit cheesy, although no more so than almost every other (heterosexual) romantic comedy, and all the loose ends are neatly and happily resolved by the end of the film as has become de rigueur for the genre. But unless you really hate seeing other people happy or can't stand it when everything in a film isn't completely believable and realistic, I can't imagine why most people wouldn't enjoy an hour and half of likeable characters, amusing dialogue, and pretty girls exchanging looks full of longing and clandestinely kissing. What's not to like?

King Kong in 2005

2006-01-16T21:49:00.000-05:00

First of all, the racial politics of King Kong are deeply, deeply disturbing. And I cannot believe that no one has commented on this (at least not in any reviews I've read). This notable silence signifies to me that there is a serious delusion prevailing in American culture that racism has been quelled to the point that perpetuating racial stereotypes is all fine and good because, of course(!), everyone understands that stereotypes aren't real and are just used for effect. Sure, the silly portrayal of the Chinese cargo foreman was mostly redeemed by the excellent performance by Evan Parke as Hayes, the articulate, heroic African American first mate (who, of course, dies), but there is nothing in the film that can make me forgive the incredibly insulting representation of the island natives. You know, many civilized early cultures performed human sacrifice rituals. Just because they're giving Naomi Watts to Kong doesn't mean they have to act like psychotic, savage animals, incapable of speech beyond screeching incoherently or mumbling incantations, and with their eyes rolled back in their heads so that only the whites show in stark contrast to the coal-blackness of their skin (which looks, although I can't be certain, to be greased and darkened for further effect). I mean, really. Peter Jackson, what the fuck were you thinking? It's sad to think that the portrayal of the native islanders in the 1933 version--where they're actually capable of having a conversation--is less problematic than their portrayal in 2005.
And while I'm bitching about the island scenes, did anyone else feel that the whole sacrifice mise-en-scene looked a little too much like the castle siege set from The Lord of the Rings?

Okay, I'm glad I got that off my chest. Now, onwards...

I thought Naomi Watts was brilliant, and Adrien Brody was pretty good, too, in a quiet, understated sort of way that was refreshing in contrast to all the flashy imagery. Jack Black irritated the hell out of me, to the point that when he first came on screen I thought: Am I really going to be able to sit through 3 hours of this guy? Speaking of length, I know that Peter Jackson is overcome with rapture for his own brilliance and the magical power of special effects, but 3 hours was just too long. Not because I can't sit still for 3 hours--I was more than willing to do so with the LotR trilogy, for example, because the stories warranted the time (for the most part)--but because at least an hour, if not more, of the film was, quite simply, gratuitous, flashy posturing.

After about the quadrillionth time Black and his merry band of expendable anti-heroes was beset upon by stampeding brontosaurs, attacked by excessively large insects or eaten by grotesquely slimly twelve-foot long water worms and about the hundredth time Watts was either carried in one of Kong’s hands as he galloped through the forest (um, all of her bones would be broken twenty times over because of the sheer impact of his knuckles hitting the forest floor with her inside whether he was deliberately squeezing or not) or protected from raging T-Rex’s and other hungry dinosaurs, bats, bugs, etc., I was ready to scream.

It could have been shorter, with less special effects for the sake of special effects and more narrative depth, and it would have been a good remake. Instead, it illustrated the core of what is wrong with Hollywood films today—a concentration on the visual which exceeds even the pretence of an interest in the story—and April and I spent at least an hour after the film bitching heatedly. I can honestly say that I have never come out of the cinema so thoroughly incensed.

On the upside—and so you don’t think I’m anti-special effects entirely (I just think they should be used for a purpose not just because you can)—Kong was a remarkable creation; his features were beautiful and realistic and obviously crafted from actual images of gorillas. And the story was beautiful and poignant in spite of its exceptionally discomfiting, exhausting and ostentatious rendering. But when Black delivered (badly, I might add) the final line—“It wasn’t the airplanes; it was beauty killed the beast”—I had to fight the impulse to jump angrily out of my seat and yell at the screen, “No, you bastard. It was the airplanes, and your fucking patriarchal, colonialist, pompous ass that killed Kong. She could have stayed or even left the island with you and everything would have been okay if you hadn’t decided to drag poor Kong back to New York City for show and tell. Argh!”

Sadly, what the film brought home to me to me most was that many people, once they catch sight of power or money or fame, will stop at nothing to achieve it. Along the way, they will sacrifice the lives of others for some fanciful notion of adventure or honor or glory that doesn’t truly exist, and they will gallantly destroy “monsters” in the name of the public or the nation or the common good, claiming that they are fighting for everyone, that the enemy is savage, when it really is an enemy of their own design, a monster that they themselves created.

ten ways of looking at a tooth (or teeth, as the case may be)

2006-01-08T17:04:00.000-05:00

For all who are interested (or for those of you who have nothing better to do than read about my dental work), I present the epic chronicle of my wisdom teeth and their extraction (don’t ask why, I have no idea why this struck me as an interesting, or even worthy, topic, but, if nothing else, maybe someone nervous teenager will come across it while mining Google one day for information on wisdom tooth extraction, and my testimony will then be of some use to the general populace…I’m good at making excuses for my oddness, no?):

1. For many years, my dentist and my dental hygienist have been all but pestering me to get my wisdom teeth removed. “They’ll cause you problems,” they said. “They’ll eventually crowd your teeth,” they implored. But, due to a stubborn (perhaps misguided?) conviction regarding not having unnecessary surgery and my father’s counsel (“Dentists have been telling me for thirty years to have my wisdom teeth removed, and they’ve never bothered me!”), I held fast.

[Note about dentists and dental hygienists: they are incredibly maligned. I know many people are afraid of dentists (my own dear girlfriend included), and I really can’t begrudge them for it because there are some very scary and mean dentists out there. But, if you think about it, dentists and hygienists are mostly very well-trained; they have to do hard, thankless work (I mean, really, who wants to poke around in the mouth’s of strangers for hours at a time?); many dentists, especially oral surgeons, have as much training as most doctors and have to be as qualified; and yet everybody hates them. Personally, my dental hygienist, Bonnie, has always been extremely kind, gentle and courteous, and I feel that, at the risk of being an extreme dork, that a shout-out for hygienists and dentists (the good ones, at least) is necessary. I’m also impressed by the technological advances in dentistry, because tooth-aches suck (in short) and I can’t imagine have to chew cloves forever or go to some crazy neighbor with a good pair of pliers (what I fear qualified as dentistry in the past) to have it taken care of.]

2. About a year ago, my wisdom teeth started to cut through my gum line. Every few months, one of them would get a little pushy and start sneaking it’s way towards the surface. The pain was bearable, a little irritating, but it would go away in a few days, so I still wasn’t convinced by my dentist’s advice.

3. A few months ago, I started to realize that my teeth seemed to be shifting (the normal ones) to accommodate the ever-encroaching wisdom teeth (especially the one on the right that was coming in sideways). Ever so slightly, but even so it was disconcerting. And I developed pockets of gum tissue that would occasionally become infected (although I didn’t realize this is what was happening until recently) and I constantly had to be wary lest food get trapped in the pockets. This and the perplexing (and disturbing) shifting of my other teeth frustrated me enough that I decided I would ask my dentist if his offer was still open the next time I came home.

4. A few days before Christmas, I went to the dentist, reported my decision and, by the time my hour-long visit had concluded, I had an appointment for just after New Years with an oral surgeon and a blue referral sheet and panoramic X-ray in hand. They work fast, these dentist people.

5. Two days after New Years, I reported to the oral surgeon with girlfriend and mother in tow. I was very nervous and a bit irritable because I was hungry. I wasn’t supposed to eat anything because of the anesthetic and since my appointment was at 2pm, I had gone the whole morning and part of the afternoon without food or water. I’m sure April and my parents got tired of my whining earlier that morning, but were too polite to say anything--sweet of them, since I was starting to irritate myself (I obviously wouldn’t handle fasting very well).

6. Moments before the surgery, the doctor explained to me the risks of the procedure while April, who was supposed to stay with me in the room during the prep and then leave before they actually began any of the real work, grew paler and paler in her assigned corner. I don’t think she was taking well to the whole dental experience--probably having flashbacks and cringing visibly whenever she would hear a drill from one of the neighboring rooms. Then, she sent April to the waiting room, and the doctor and nurses gathered around me. I had some weird sort of fear of the IV and the fact that they were putting me under general anesthesia, but in retrospect I’m so glad I wasn’t awake. The laughing gas they put me on—I guess to calm me down before putting in the IV and really putting me under—was extremely disconcerting (not amusing at all), but I barely felt the prick of the needle in my hand and moments later I was out like the proverbial light.

7. About an hour later, I began to wake up and April tells me (although I do not have any memory of this) that, waiting in the recovery room, I proceeded to tell her (over and over and over) the same story about the laughing gas and how it disturbed me. Apparently I also had several panicked moments in which I realized my tongue was numb, asked her frantically if she thought that meant something was wrong, instructed her to get the nurse, and then lapsed into a stunned silence only to repeat the whole episode again moments later as if nothing had happened. I wish I remembered all this, but I suppose if I had been fully cognizant, it probably wouldn’t have happened.

8. Around 4pm that day I was cursing and snarling at my family as they rallied around me on the couch. But I was trying to be polite about it. You see, the painkillers hadn’t quite kicked in and the numbness of the local anesthetic had worn off, and my entire mouth—gums, teeth, tongue, palate—seemed to be screeching silently in pain. Everyone was asking me how I felt and if I needed anything and all I could think about was that my face felt like it was going to fall off. But I managed to grind out several terse replies of “Please. Just. Go. Away.” and then apologized later for being rude. I know it’s ridiculous, but I was feeling oddly guilty—everyone was being so nice and I just couldn’t stand to have anyone in the room. When the painkillers (Vicodin and prescription-strength Motrin) blissfully kicked in, I slept for about twenty-four hours (give or take), taking brief breaks to be fed Jello and Naked smoothies, watch television through hooded lids, and to take more medication (every four and every six hours, when my mother would pad into the room and thrust some water and a pill into my hands).

9. A day and a half later, I realized that I am a terrible patient. I can’t sit still. I appreciate the pampering, but I’m not very good at accepting it. I wanted to help pack for our trip back north. I wanted to check my email without my eyes crossing. I wanted to sleep in the same bed with my girlfriend instead of on the couch. I wanted to help my mom with the 3D puzzle I bought her for Christmas or help my dad strap the roof storage container on my car.

10. Now, I’m sitting at home. We made it back to NY safe and sound. I discovered, through dubious but fairly thorough internet research, that I probably have something called dry socket in my lower right wisdom tooth hole. This is basically a failure of the blood clot (which acts as a scab over the wound) to form (or the disruption of an already formed blood clot in the first 24 hours), resulting in, as one site called it, “exquisite pain” because the bone and nerve-endings beneath the gum are exposed instead of being protected by the blood clot. It’s fairly common, and one can treat the pain, but not the actual condition, apparently. I could be wrong—since I’m not really qualified to self-diagnose--but I fit every single one of the symptoms I found on several different medical and pseudo-medical websites. It hurts, but it’s not the end of the world. And treating it myself with clove oil (which makes my whole mouth numb and tingly) and gauze and lots of Listerine and regular doses of over-the-counter Ibuprofen seems to do the trick. That’s where I am right now. But it seems to be getting better incrementally every day (for the first time this afternoon I wasn’t watching the clock to see when I could take another painkiller, so that’s a good sign). [Edit January 9, 2006: I talked to two different nurses today, one who told me I did have dry socket and one who told me that if I had dry socket I would be in so much pain that ibuprofen wouldn't even take the edge of. I'm inclined to believe the latter since the pain's been getting less. Obviously the same symptoms look very different to different people.]

I’m glad I got it done, though, despite the trouble. I have hopes that now my teeth will jubilantly, if slowly in the manner of teeth, spread out a bit to enjoy the new spaciousness of my mouth (it would make flossing easier), and that though my teeth are now in a miniature manila envelope in my jewelry box (they were removed almost completely intact), I will have no want of wisdom in the future.

um...ow

2006-01-04T22:00:00.000-05:00

It's certainly been an interesting week. New Years was a political and intellectual extravaganza, really fascinating and engaging. And currently I'm sitting here in a Vicodin-induced haze trying very hard to focus my eyes on my computer and ignore the lingering pain in my jaw. I spent yesterday afternoon getting my wisdom teeth removed, which really needed to be done but wasn't a particularily fun experience (especially after spitting blood for eight hours afterwards and sleeping probably for the past twenty hours, on and off). April and I were hoping to drive back home tomorrow (from my parents' house), but now I think we're going to have to wait till Friday. I'd love to be back by tomorrow evening, but I just don't have the strength to pack right now. Luckily, she seems amenable to waiting for another day and both she and my parents are being very sweet. I'm really not a good patient. I'm not good at letting people take care of me. Yesterday, I didn't mind so much because I was mostly sleeping and dazedly watching television while being woken up every few hours to take another painkiller, but today it's been hard to just lie here because I'm while I'm more alert, I still can't stand up for more than a few minutes without feeling dizzy. Sigh. Maybe I'll try weaning myself off the Vicodin tonight (and just continue taking the triple-strength Motrin the doctor also gave me); I hate the way it makes me feel.

That all said, I love you all and I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and New Year! I'll be back to my old self in no time, I'm sure. :)

four things meme (why are these things so appealing?)

2005-12-08T12:29:00.000-05:00

FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE:
1. Instructor, Freshman Composition (college-level)
2. Assistant to the Director, University of Virginia Art Museum
3. Peer Advisor Student Coordinator (don't ask, I don't even know what I did)
4. Teaching Assistant, Summer Theatre Institute, Live Arts

FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER:
1. When Harry Met Sally
2. Charlie’s Angels
3. X-Men 2 (even though I’ve never read the comics)
4. Aimee and Jaguar (even though it always makes me want to cry)

FOUR CITIES YOU'VE LIVED IN:
1. Charlottesville, VA
2. Phoenix, AZ
3. Durham, NC
4. Rochester, NY

FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH:
1. CSI
2. Medium
3. What Not to Wear
4. Law and Order: SVU (TBJ, too, of course, but I’m going for current shows)

FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION:
1. La Palma, Canary Islands
2. Berlin
3. South Korea
4. Vienna

FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY:
1. www.cnn.com
2. www.yahoomail.com
3. www.google.com
4. www.livejournal.com

FOUR OF YOUR ALL-TIME FAVOURITE RESTAURANTS:
(this one is really, really hard)
1. Maas, Charlottesville, VA
2. Republic, New York, NY
3. Tazaki Sushi, San Francisco, CA
4. Piaci’s, Fort Bragg, CA

FOUR OF YOUR FAVOURITE FOODS:
(I’m fudging on the “four” part of this category a bit)
1. thin-crust, fresh, hot pizza, from Piaci’s or Pomodoro or Venetto’s (latter two in Rochester); or, alternatively, Crozet Pizza in Crozet, VA also has amazing pizza
2. French fries (I’m a French fry connoisseur) and papas arrugadas (totally different, but both potatoes)
3. Barbeque baby back ribs and korean beef (both in the “meat” family)
4. garlic fried tofu with sugar snap peas

FOUR SCHOOLS YOU'VE ATTENDED:
1. University of Rochester
2. University of Virginia
3. Mary Baldwin College
4. New York University (for a summer, but still)

FOUR PLACES I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:
1. Berlin
2. Mendocino (riding on the beach)
3. Los Angeles (could it be I’m a West Coast girl at heart?)
4. New York City

all better

2005-12-07T14:43:00.000-05:00

Just a little life update vis-a-vis my grumbly post from a few weeks ago:

All seems to be well again on the Northern front. Besides the fact that it is bitterly cold--right now it's 25 degrees Fahrenheith, but feels like 12, according to weather.com (and when the radio announcer says "a high of 30 today," I laugh. 30 is not a high. It's a low that just happens to be the warmest it's going to get for the next three months)--I'm feeling much more upbeat. We've started locking the cats downstairs at night, so they still have access to the litterbox, a couch and various other comfy pieces of furniture but can't come scratching at our door at 5am. The dog seems to be much better lately, and the vet told us it was probably something weird he was getting into in the yard that was upsetting his tummy. I feel like I'm getting back on track with my work, not to mention that I told my advisor today (and now she officially my advisor because I finally asked her...yay!) that I would give her a very drafty abstracty/proposal-like thing (for my dissertation) on Friday, which is scary but good because I really need deadlines to get anything done.

Why was this SVU episode called "Alien" anyway?

2005-12-06T23:35:00.000-05:00

I almost had a panic attack when I thought, around 10:30pm, that SVU was going link lesbianism and pedophila. I was all ready to post an angry LJ entry, and April was gearing up for a furious email to NBC. But I should have know better. It's SVU. No plot device is ever final at 10:30pm; in fact, you can't usually be sure that a plot is certain until Dick Wolf's name appears and obscures any hope of episodic closure.

That said, I actually liked tonight's episode. Olivia was a goddess, defending lesbianism left and right, and despite a plot that rather resembled a tangled ball of yarn it was so twisty, I found myself very engaged and invested in the show. I cheered when Casey said, triumphantly, "And that's a hate crime." I swore at the television in righteous anger because I knew much earlier than the detectives that the grandmother was trouble ("It's that bitch telling the girl lies. Lies, I tell you."). Although I didn't know it was going to be all the lawyer's idea--a nice touch to avoid turning the grandparents into completely scary monsters. I loved that the moms' lesbianism was defended at every turn (mostly by Olivia), although I had to agree with that judge that it totally wasn't cool for, the second mom, Zoe, to claim that she had no legal standing one moment and then try to claim legal guardianship the next. But I suppose it's a lesson: don't try to use things you don't like about the system to your advantage. It'll bite you in the ass every time.

All things comsidered, this was an episode in which all the characters were complicated (and sometimes uncomfortable) shades of grey (except the sleazy lawyer...no mercy there). I like that. Complexity is good.

And on a completely unrelated note: Jon Stewart is love. :)

oh yeah, it's monday...

2005-11-28T23:03:00.000-05:00

Seven Reasons Why I’m Losing My Eternal Optimism
(for the moment)

1. My favorite radio station has switched to 24-hour Christmas music.
2. Despite the fact that I didn't really have anything to do today, I managed to do very little actual work. This is becoming a trend.
3. My favorite student this semester did not turn in her partial research paper draft and seems to have dropped off the face of the earth. Another one of my students may have plagiarized (sudden lucid and articulate prose that's not really typical of his writing), but I can't figure out where from.
4. Our dog had yet another bout of inexplicable, stinky and messy digestive upset last night. We think (hope) it might be a food allergy. But it keeps coming and going without apparent cause, which makes us nervous and him sad (because he's usually so well housetrained and gets upset if he has an accident).
5. My cat, Olive, sleeps too much. To make up for all her sleep during the day, she wakes us up at 5am scratching on the bedroom door. April's a very light sleeper, and while I'm a fairly deep sleeper, I'm obviously still being unconsciously disturbed because I wake up feeling exhausted.
6. I seem to be universally behind on everything--schoolwork, my dissertation, correspondence, even my hobbies, like livejournal and karate.

And the kicker...

7. Our water heater broke last week right before we went away for Thanksgiving. It was supposed to be replaced today, but when the plumber came he announced that I'd ordered the wrong water heater and would have to ask Sears to correct the error. Then he left, and I spent the next hour on the phone with the DIY triumvirate (Sears, Home Depot, Lowes) trying to figure out which had the best deal on the type of water heater I needed and who had them in stock (since what I need is apparently less common than the normal natural gas water heater). I finally purchased one from Lowes, and now I just have to hope that the plumber is able to come tomorrow when I'm home (and that everything goes smoothly) so we don't have to go another day showering in the gym or at a friend's house (not to mention the fact that I had to wash dishes tonight--they were getting scary--by boiling lots of water).

Okay, I'm done now. After all, Monday is almost over, right?

No. It's not enough to say, "she's pretty."

2005-11-14T16:49:00.000-05:00

For your reading pleasure (and my viewing pleasure), my top ten favorite women on television (formerly a meme stolen from LiveJournal), in no particular order:

1. Abby Lockhart, ER
There's something about Maura Tierney's acting that holds everything else together on ER. Even though I've all but stopped watching the show, I still tune in occasionally just because I miss her (and Neela and Kerry, too). I read someone describe her acting style as mise-en-scene. I agree completely; she always makes Abby an integral, if brilliantly understated, part of every scene. Plus, Abby's beautiful and quiet and a little dark, but she's also fiery and intelligent and cynical. I like that kind of complexity in a woman.

2. Kelly Gaffney, Law and Order: Trial by Jury
Again, understated beauty and brilliance. Obviously, it's a bit of a theme for me. Kelly is probably the television character I most identify with personally, although I couldn't explain exactly why. Maybe I identify with Kelly because I also think Tracey Kibre is sexy as hell and a damn fine lawyer (double entendre intended). ;)

3. Alex Cabot, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
Because the show hasn't been the same since she left. And because the ending of "Loss" still makes me ache and her presence in "Ghost" still makes me swoon.

4. Gabrielle, Xena: Warrior Princess
Especially in Season 6 (she wasn't as feisty or as sexy earlier when she was all innocent and pure). I'm embarrassed to admit that very few of my television girlfriends have been able to come close to being as sexy to me as final season Gabrielle--she was strong and sensitive, emotional and courageous, confident, clever... It must be the short skirts and weapons, because blonds aren't usually my type.

5. Tina, The L-Word
Actually, this list is quickly disproving my assertion that blondes aren't usually my type, but let me just say this: I love Tina. I think she's gorgeous and resourceful and generous. I think she and Bette make a beautiful couple as long as Bette doesn't start being an insensitive, manipulative jerk again. However, my first love on the The L-Word was Marina (Karina Lombard)--now she could make me swoon every time she came on screen--but since Marina is no longer on the show (and, besides, my love for her was a bit on the shallow side) I had to transfer my affections elsewhere.

6. Allison Dubois, Medium
I like Allison because she's such a realistically-flawed character despite her supernatural gifts. Her visions are never wrong and yet she never interprets them correctly the first time around (you'd think she'd have figured that out by now). She's rash. She's emotional. She can be insensitive, uncompromising, and self-absorbed. She's a good wife and mother, but she's neither perfect nor obedient. She's not easily subdued. And, in the end, she's always right.

7. Sara Sidle, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
I really can't explain this one at all. She's cocky and acerbic and irritating half the time and dark and brooding the rest, but every once and a while she smiles or laughs or says something particularly sarcastic (and funny) and I find myself charmed.

8. Karen Walker, Will and Grace
Honestly, I hardly ever watch the show anymore, but Karen just makes me laugh. And laugh. And laugh. Maybe I have a twisted sense of humor, but she's by far my favorite TV sitcom character. And besides, Megan Mullally has a stunning singing voice.

9. B'Ellana Torres, Star Trek: Voyager
This one is a real toss up for me because I love Seven of Nine--and not actually for the stereotypical reasons (the leggy, busty blond thing), but because she's both laid bare and completely enigmatic simultaneously and because Jeri Ryan played her with such incredible panache. But ultimately B'Ellana trumps Seven because she was my favorite from the very beginning (before her Klingon ridges started to get lighter and lighter season after season and she got softer and less rebellious). I liked her when she was brazen and feisty and got into a fist fights with other crewmembers. I liked her before she and Tom started to get all lovey-dovey (I didn't mind them dating, only that they became mundane and romantic).

10. Willow, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer
I loved her in Season 4 when she's trying to find a place for herself--both in terms of her sexuality and in terms of her witchcraft. I liked her when she was a little more naive than end-of-show Willow, when she was just learning that she had more courage and power than she ever thought possible. There was always something about her naiveté mixed with her intelligence that was simultaneously empowering and touching. Plus, she's adorable. What can I say?

***
Mostly what this list proves is that I'm fickle and easily seduced by beautiful women. But only on television. And they have to be complex and intelligent, not merely beautiful. I do have some emotional depth after all.

note to self: burning feathers smell...bad

2005-10-30T01:44:00.000-05:00

I know Halloween isn't until Monday, but, as far as I'm concerned, once the costume is "out of the bag," so to speak, then Halloween is pretty much over. Not that I don't also have a sort of ambivalent affection for the hundreds (I am not exaggerating) of children that will come to our door Monday night (last year April had to run out for more candy), but now that I'm no longer able to legitimately trick or treat (nor would I really want to), Halloween is more about the costume than anything.

That said, last night April and I went to a Halloween party (hence dressing up before the actual holiday). She went as Medusa (poor thing--she looked great, but the wires holding the snakes on her head gave her a monster headache and a bruise on her scalp!); while I had first considered going as Perseus, the Gorgon's slayer, I eventually decided that I wanted to have a costume that was a least slightly more interesting in its own right. So, continuing with the Greek myth theme, I decided to go as Icarus. You know, that belligerent teenager who wouldn't listen to his father when the old man was trying to teach his son how to fly? Not heeding the paternal warnings, Icarus flew too close to the sun, the wax holding his wings together melted, and he plummeted into the ocean. Actually, as a child I never liked Icarus because I couldn't imagine so pointedly disobeying my parents (interestingly, this is also why I disliked Beverly Cleary's Ramona), but now I think there's something fascinating about his rebellion. Or maybe I just wanted a good excuse to dress like a boy and have wings. I don't know.

I do have a rather long history of cross-dressing Halloween costumes (most from my childhood): a teenaged mutant ninja turtle (Raphael, for those interested), a knight, Robin Hood, a notebook and pencil (okay, that's gender-neutral, but it shows what a complete and utter nerd I was/am), etc... Last year, I was a Samurai; the trend continues. Although, every once and a while I feel the need to have a sexy, girly costume (Artemis, a devil, a spidery-witch). I always like to look at least somewhat attractive, but gender is apparently not so important.

Anyway, part of the fun of the Icarus costume was buying cheap wings and setting them on fire (they actually didn’t really “catch” on fire, which is probably good, but were very prone to singeing at the touch of flame). I was pleased with the result—wings frayed and singed and covered in blood-red wax (see below)—but not so pleased with the resulting odor. I guess I’ve never burned feathers before, but they smell a bit like burning hair or flesh. Not pleasant. And even though I did the actual burning outside, the smell clung to the feathers and gave me a headache for about the first hour I was wearing them. Luckily, by the time I actually made it to the party, the smell had mostly dissipated—at least, no one seemed too unwilling to sit next to me, so I assume it had lessened somewhat.

So, note to self: allow at least 1-2 hours for burning feathers to lose their smell before they are worn.

NYTVF

2005-09-23T15:44:00.000-04:00

Next weekend (September 29th-October 2nd) is the first annual New York Television Festival (www.nytvf.com), and as an extreme lover and...ahem...scholar of television, I'll be flying down to NYC for the weekend to attend screenings and panels and just generally enjoy the company of fellow television enthusiasts.

My schedule's fairly limited--since I'll be in and out of NYTVF programs both Saturday and Sunday--but I'll be arriving early Friday morning and will have most of the day Friday free (and I'll even have some time in between events on Saturday and Sunday if you're willing to meet me in Chelsea/Greenwich Village). So, anyone who's around and would like to meet me for coffee or brunch or lunch or dinner or drinks, please please let me know. :) I'd love to see you.

Also, on the off-chance that anyone I know is going to be at the festival itself, I'd love to meet up. Drop me a line.

I promise a full report when I return.

Viewer discretion is advised...

2005-09-11T23:57:00.000-04:00

So much has been going on lately, both in the world and in my life, that posting has seemed like a far-off and unfathomable possibility. Still, I’ve been planning a long update (please note the word long for those of you with places to be or only a passing interest in my life) for several days now, and since I’m currently battling a cold (April’s apologies, unnecessary though they are, for “giving” me a cold are still ringing in my ears) and am pretty much incapacitated where real mental powers are concerned, I thought I’d go ahead and take pen to paper, so to speak, and let it all out.

I hate that today is called "Patriot Day." I'm not sure I can explain why I hate it, but I do. Maybe it's because hallmark.com has it listed as such on its website. What? Are we supposed to send cards to people in honor of Patriot Day? Maybe it's because it turns what should be a day remembrance for lives tragically lost into nationalist propaganda, something that has been happening from the very beginning and which actually infuriates me. Maybe.

And, of course, there’s Katrina. I knew a girl named Katrina once—a whirlwind of incomprehensible emotions and totally unexplainable rebelliousness, cold one minute, burning the next. I barely knew her, but had great contempt for her brashness. And of course I adored her, too. Not much different with this Katrina—except for the adoration bit—as Katrina has come to stand for everything from the hurricane itself to its startling, appalling and devastating aftermath. The first few days, I kept finding April teary-eyed in front of the television, first because of the human devastation and then because of the animal suffering. I envy her empathy. I cringe inwardly every time I hear myself telling her to turn the television off or change the channel. I don’t mean to be the stoic or to avoid—even though I know that’s exactly what I’m doing, always retreating. I’ve donated money; I would be there if I could; I’m not heartless. Am I trying to convince myself? Maybe I’m practical. Or maybe I shut down when empathy gets too hard.

Instead of watching the news, I’ve been watching CSI with a vengeance. Even though watching it before I go to bed routinely makes it impossible for me to go to sleep without worrying that a murderer is lurking under my bed. I do love the show now (due, in part, to watching it for hours on end with my dear friend Christina in her 90 degree, not air-conditioned, apartment earlier this summer), which means—for better or for worse—that I’ve found a new fandom to obsess about. I can see April mentally sigh every time she asks what I’m doing and finds I’m reading another piece of fan fiction, and even though I’m fairly sure she thinks I’m a little obsessed (I wouldn’t disagree with her), I also think she realizes sometimes I need a little obsession. Sometimes it’s nice to lose myself in something mindless and beautiful and insignificant—in terms of my life and the world at large—for a while. And besides, sometimes I find it incredibly cathartic to tell someone how much I enjoyed their work. I’m a feedback junkie in another sense than the one usually described—if I love something, there’s no greater pleasure for me than telling the writer just how wonderful I think their work is. Especially now, some things still need to be wonderful.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been as persistent with my friendships as I have with my online feedback. A friend of mine wrote me a beautiful and very sweet email today after we hadn’t spoken in almost a year, and it got me thinking about all the correspondence I’ve neglected because I’ve “been too busy” or just plain lazy. True, I saw six different friends this summer through various visitations (Germany, Minnesota, two in LA, two in my own house), all of which were lovely. I count myself extremely lucky that I got to spend time with people I love—and that, over the years, I’ve met so many incredible people in my life I am truly proud to call friends—but there are so many people I haven’t even spoken to in months (if not longer). My long-ago ex in Mississippi whom I’ve been thinking about a lot lately because of Katrina, even though she’s in a central part of the state. My high-maintenance southern belle in Virginia with whom I used to have arguments about feminism and whose love letters (written to others, of course) used to make me cry because they were so beautiful. One of my best friends with whom I used to spend hours on the phone each night, when we were living only a few miles apart, and who now lives in Georgia and we never speak anymore because we don’t seem to know what to say to each other. My dahling in New York City whose name I’d love to see in lights so badly it almost hurts. A friend who once got me through a nasty break-up with her kindness, though she may not ever know how much what she did for me meant, who has now seemingly disappeared in Africa somewhere seeking the love of her life. And so many more: a friend with a baby in North Carolina, a friend with a new restaurant, my rubber ducky, my gay-boy soon-to-be-architect, a friend in Michigan who taught me the joy of pumpkin muffins…it goes on. Not to mention that I haven’t talked to either of my grandmothers in ages. But I suppose there’s only so much one person can do. And I have April. Who’s taught me how to accept love as such and not ask so many questions. I’m grateful for what I have, but deeply sorry sometimes that I can’t stop the world on its axis and just…catch up.

On a brighter note, my life is nothing to complain about. I’ve had three sessions now of the first class I’ve ever taught on my own and my students are just so lovely. I may not think this once they’re first papers come in and I’m struggle to explain to them in the margins why this or that sentence doesn’t make any sense without coming off as scolding or uncompromising, but for now I absolutely adore them. I remember being a freshman, too, and their enthusiasm, their freshness, is invigorating.

All right, this meandering, navel-lint-contemplating purging has gone on long enough. Next time I’ll post something more about my students because I’m eager to share my love for them with the world. I’d like to write this whole mess off and say it was the cold medication, but I haven’t been taking any. Not stoicism this time, though, just plain old stubbornness.

the last hurrah

2005-08-12T19:30:00.000-04:00

It is with deepest sadness that I report that the great and loyal Alexia Mercedes Benz, better known as simply Alex, has been retired from service. Built in 1992, Alex has been my car since 1999, ferrying me through thick and thin, inclement weather, fog, heat and snow. She has never left me stranded on the side of the road, though together we have blown tires (2, plus a bent rim), lost mufflers (1), blown fuses (3), and gone through innumerable quarts of oil. She has accompanied me to three different universities, has driven through at least seven states (and the District of Columbia) , and has survived mulitple girlfriends. Many times, and without complaint (except the last), Alex has stalwartly driven the two-hour commute to DC from my parents' house, the four-hour drive to my grandparents for Thanksgiving and, most impressively, the nine-hour drive from Western NY to Virginia (and back). She was a dream to drive: smooth and fast and powerful and sleek. And she always won when I drag raced her down Route 29.

The past six years I have watched fireworks through her sun roof, been dazzled by her James Bond-esque built-in phone system, and driven her proudly through great snow storms when others were too nervous to drive. I've backed her into a tree, a house, and a brand new Saab, and despite the fact that I ran her into a telephone guide wire in a snowstorm and ripped half her bumper off (which then was held on by duck tape for the next two months), she's always been the most dignified car I've ever seen. Even in the past year, as she steadily began to leak more and more oil, I felt inexplicably pleased with all the things she has taught me: where and how to add oil, how to add coolant and transmission fluid, how to drive in snow or heavy rain, what a broken muffler sounds likes, how to change a tire. More than anything, I have been continually impressed by Alex's incredible integrity--even as she progressively began to falter she never stopped running, and I truly believe that she never would. There could be nothing left but an engine, a driver's seat and a steering wheel, and Alex would still be merrily churning along without fail.

Unfortunately, she has been suffering from an increasingly drastic series of ailments (as well as some that are more minor): over the winter her four-wheel drive broke due to a leak in her hydralic fluid (this alone would be a $5000 repair) and she leaks oil heavily to the point that on the drive to Virginia this last time her engine temperature was reaching dangerous levels. Also, the CD player stopped working, her radio antenna is jammed, and unlocking her from the driver's side door causes the car alarm to go off. And, this weekend, during an impressive thunder shower on the drive home from DC, Alex's muffler began to sound like the engine of a prop plane. I tried to laugh it off by making brrrmmming sounds with my lips in imitation, but after some thought we realized that for everyone involved the best decision would be to leave her at my parents' house and rent a car with which to return to New York.

This is not such a shock. I've been planning to get a new car for a few months now, but I think I wasn't properly prepared. I'd like to think, however, that Alex's suddenly manic muffler was her way of telling me that it was time to let go--of her, of the past--and just enjoy the memories. And while I'm excited about the prospect of a new car, I can't help but be just a litte heartbroken over the loss of Alex, who sits behind my parents' house awaiting an uncertain future.

Vacation Update Interlude...Family Pictures

2005-07-17T19:19:00.000-04:00

I'll continue with the regularily scheduled vacation update (only a relatively short Germany post left now) in the near future, but for now I wanted to post a couple of cute family photos from my trip to La Palma. Enjoy.

A group shot of me, April, my parents, my aunt and uncle and one of their dogs, Fina. Benny, the other dog, was off hunting lizards and wouldn't sit still for the photo-op.

Benny

Fina

Me and the lovely April

Of Volcanoes, Salt, Mountains and Mojo

2005-07-15T22:17:00.000-04:00

Since I don’t have the energy for yet another bout of effusive prose (and you may not have the stamina, for which I do not blame you in the least), part 2 of my post-vacation log will be more photo diary than journal.

june 8-11 ~imagining how jules verne felt on the precipice~

The day after our exhausting La Palma arrival, April and I duly set off for the beach, where we sat and sat and sat for the better part of a day. Heavenly, but not really of much interest. The day after (the 9th), however, my aunt and uncle took us for a little drive to the southern tip of the island where we visited the Teneguia volcano, one of many volcanoes scattered across the island. Teneguia is the most recently active of the islands’ native fiery fissures, having last erupted in 1971. It’s both beautiful and a bit intimidating and we, ever the explorers (or so we’d like to believe), bravely tromped across its craggy surface searching for openings, from which you can still feel the hot, moist air rising from its molten core far below.

In the image below you can see the slopes of the volcano and the hardened lava on which some industrious soul has fostered a successful vineyard!

And here’s me trying to look stalwart and adventurous while unfortunately my aunt looks like a mini version of herself. Funny, that camera angle…

On our return home from the volcano, we also drove by the Teneguia salt mines (unfortunately, on the ride home, April also became queasy—a recurring incident on La Palma’s twisty-turny road system…the things we go through to experience beauty). Although these heaps of salt may seem nothing more than mild, unintentional allusions to Sodom and Gomorrah, I found them oddly fascinating and strangely beautiful. And, of course, ever the fledging foodies, we took a bag of Teneguia sea salt home with us. This will come in handy should we ever try to make what quickly be came my favorite local dish. Papas arraguadas are small potatoes boiled in and encrusted with sea salt and tradionally served with another local favorite, mojo, a red or green (depending on the ingredients) coarse puree of cilantro, peppers and garlic. This is truly the food of the gods. Well, Pele at least.

The salt mines:

Banana plantations, another local crop, also cover the island, leaving much of the land—from a birds-eye view—covered in an eerily leafy and textured green.

On the way home from Teneguia, we also stopped by an incredible plaza (called “La Glorieta” and located in the town of Las Manchas). The entire plaza was covered in mosaics—the ground, the surrounding walls, the benches—and teeming with artfully arranged plantlife.

After a day like this, all we really could do was eat—lots and lots of mojo and papas—and collapse into bed. What happy exhaustion!

june 12-14 ~water, water, everywhere~

My parents joined us on the island on the 10th, and their arrival involved some more driving tours of the island—which involved, unfortunately, more battles with car sickness—and more revelry (i.e. Spanish champagne and general gluttony). On the 12th, my father, aunt and uncle, April and I embarked on a mini-expedition to hike along an incredible cliff-face. Getting there was hard enough—the last 12km of our journey took almost an hour (in a car!) as we slowly wound our way over an unpaved and very rocky road up the hike’s starting point. The hike itself came complete with a death-defying drop on one side and a series of thirteen tunnels along its route, which had to be navigated with flashlight and cautious steps. My favorite tunnel, the thirthteenth, was completely waterlogged due to excessive winter rains; we had to navigate the passage over only a foot of exposed rock floor (the rest was under a foor or so of streaming water) and large, continuous trickles of water from overhead. (My mother, smart lady, stayed home and did crossword puzzles by the pool. I really can’t blame her.) It was one of the most terrific hikes I’ve ever been on though we frequently hit our heads on the sharp tunnel ceilings and both of our flashlights went out going through the third tunnel (so that, for the next three hours, we had to navigate by touch and the meager sparkles of light from families’ beams). The views were spectacular, the tunnels fantastically fun and the drops breathtaking. Here’s a sampling:

One of the earlier tunnels, made so bright only because of my camera’s flash:

And the views:

Despite all the gorgeous vistas, my favorite moment (and also one of my favorite photographs from the trip) of the hike was the moment I discovered the rock rose. So much smaller than her towering surroundings and yet magnificent all the same, she grows where nothing so beautiful and lush would seem to be capable of taking root:

The hike was surely the climax of our time in La Palma—all of which was fantastic—and a few days later we said our adieus and traveled on to Germany, land of the terrific French fries, never-ending cathedral construction sites, and much, much more.

Learning Spanish would have been a start...

2005-07-06T00:53:00.000-04:00

Finally, Part 1 of my summer 2005 travel chronicles. I know you all have been sitting on the edge of your seats. ;)

june 6-7 ~ flying is for the birds

Already, from looking at my father’s meticulously planned travel itinerary, I knew it was going to be a harrowing beginning to what I hoped would be a wonderful vacation. Three flights in all over the course of a 24-hour period, a 6 hour layover in Newark...April and I were determined to make the best of it, and I had already jokingly agreed to take her to dinner at some horrid airport restaurant-bar during our holdover in Newark. Unfortunately, as is often the case, in exchange for our eventual safe flights and lovely vacation, the Travel Gods extorted a toll. In our case, it was a 6 ½ hour delay—due to storms somewhere in the “friendly skies” between Western New York and Newark—made all the worse because we weren’t any closer to our intended destination. In fact, we were sitting, stuck, in an airport not five miles from our house where are pets were probably already starting to suspect that we weren’t coming back for a while. We were practically tearing our hair out by the time we made it to Newark and ran pell-mell through the airport (terrifying how a six-hour layover can turn into an almost-missed connection at the whim of the weather) just in time for our flight to Madrid. And once we settled down on the last leg of our journey, from Madrid to Santa Cruz de La Palma (the capital of the island of La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, an archipelago owned by Spain but located off the northwest coast of Morocco) we had almost forgotten our annoyance. Regrettably, just as our anxiety level was simmering down to a low rumble, it dawned on us that we were flying to a Spanish-speaking island and hadn’t bothered to learn any Spanish.

I have an (lame) excuse for this glaring cultural snafu: my aunt and uncle (on my father’s side) live on La Palma and as they are German, it had never occurred to me that I might have to anything more linguistically difficult than translate German to English and back again for April. In my mind, La Palma was an island inhabited only by Germans (or, perhaps, just my aunt and uncle) and any other language skills wouldn’t be necessary. Okay. Really, we just forgot. I blame travel anxiety.

So, all other boring travel details aside, we did, finally, arrive in La Palma. And yes, the sun was shining and the air was dry and warm and refreshing all at once and, Madonna wasn’t lying, “la isla bonita” (yep, that’s what they call it) has a lovely tropical island breeze. I’ve been to La Palma before, years ago, but I had forgotten the intense beauty of the stark volcanic landscape—black lava rocks covered in hardy grasses, cacti, incredible tropical flowers, and skittering lizards—and the never-ending blue of the sky (or, alternately, the studied concentration of the clouds cascading over the Caldera—the main volcanic crater of in the center of the island, surrounded by high, mountainous ridges which run down the central length of the land).

My aunt and uncle picked us up from the airport, exhausted but happy, and we all drove back to their gorgeous house in El Paso (on the western coast of the island). The photo below is an image of their incredibly lush yard—the climate is so temperate on the island that plants just grow all year round. You may also be able to see one of their gorgeous Spanish hunting dogs (Podenkos) in the background—they got both dogs from an organization that specializes in rescuing these often mistreated hunters.

From the moment we arrived my aunt began plying us with fantastic Spanish champagne (also, bourbon in our coffee) and she didn’t stop offering (but we stopped accepting) until the day we left. She even left a big bottle of champagne (which we drank, of course) in the apartment where we were staying in Puerto Naos. Usually used by my uncle’s mother when she comes to stay in the winter, the apartment is literally two blocks from the beach (my aunt and uncle live slightly further inland) and April and I spent our first day after our arrival lounging on the beach and eating pizza (We embarrassed ourselves completely, by the way, when we couldn’t even manage to say “the bill, please” in Spanish. We gestured wildly until the waiter took pity on us.).

This picture, of me and April floating on our backs in the ocean, was taken by my father when my parents arrives a few days later, but it conveys our feeling of relief and relaxation on that first day just the same.

In part two, we’ll hike along cliffs, wade through watery tunnels, eat lots and lots of good food and bid farewell to sunny La Palma on our way to Berlin. Stay tuned.

Don’t worry, the subsequent parts of my travel log will be much shorter with far more pictures; this is just the verbose intro.

Mad Hot

2005-07-02T14:08:00.000-04:00

Mad hot pimping for one of the best documentaries I've seen (hell, one of best movies I've seen, period) in quite a long time:

Mad Hot Ballroom features three NYC public schools taking part in a 10-week ballroom dancing program for fifth graders (about 60 NYC schools participate in the this program, which started 10 years ago with just two schools). I went to see the movie because I love ballroom dancing, and I expected to be entertained and perhaps even amused by the kids and their teachers as they trained to compete in the culminating city-wide competition. What I didn't expect was to be blown away by the wit, intelligence, and enthusiasm of the kids and their incredible dedication to what basically amounts to a required phys. ed./arts course. It would already have been a good film because the kids were great and the concept was interesting, but it was a great film because it was exceptionally put-together, providing an insight into the children's lives without seeming overbearing (as the classes are very multi-cultural and many of the kids, particularily from one of the schools, are from working-class families). No voice-over, no (visible) interviewers, just teriffic dance footage (boy, these kids can dance--and, mind you, some of them had never even heard of ballroom dancing before) and shots of the kids and teachers at school and at home learning and talking about dancing and their lives.

It's so obvious how important the dance program is for many of the kids that the film could probably serve as a very persuasive tool for folks lobbying for the continuation of arts programming. Hell, I even wanted to teach public school in New York City after watching the film and that's no small feat!

http://www.paramountclassics.com/madhot/

melting is for ice cream, not me

2005-06-28T13:46:00.000-04:00

Home again, home again, and I have to say that when the pilot on the rickety tiny-plane flight told us that it was 95 degrees (and, I could guess from past experiences, stifling humid) at our destination, I almost ran up to the cockpit and told him to turn around. But no, we had pets who were eagerly awaiting our return (at least, I'd like to think so) and a garden to rescue (from three weeks of uncontrolled week growth) and real lives to which we had to return. Suffice it to say, April and I are back in Rochester and it's hot as blue blazes (as my mother always likes to say). Hot enough that we've been taking Fargo (and, occasionally, Regie) into the yard and spraying him with the hose every few hours. We've been hunkering down in the rooms with window air-conditioning and trying to avoid steamier parts of the house. I know, I shouldn't complain lest the weather-gods frown down upon me and curse us with an unnaturally cruel and long winter (who am I kidding? we'll have that anyway), but I just can't help it.

Enough. No more complaining about the temperature. Some people politely, or not so politely (you know who you are! :P) demanded pictures and stories upon my return and rest assured that I will post a long, photo-filled explication of our journeys over the next few days. I'll also be trying to catch up on correspondence, but that may take me a little longer. Bear with me in the coming days and please, if you have some to spare, can you send a few cool summer breezes my way?

You are leaving the American sector...

2005-06-18T10:55:00.000-04:00

So, I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Berlin (trying to write on a German keyboard, mind you, which is not really a piece of cake when one is used to touch-typing) and since April is next to me writing a long, probably beautifully-written blog entry, I thought I might do the same. At least, write an entry...no promises on length or beauty. Rest assured, that there will be a long and picture-filled post when I get back to the States in a little over a week; this is just a mini-update.

We're leaving Berlin today--after a three-day dash through the city--and heading to my grandmother's house in a little village about an hour away from Cologne. Somehow, in about an hour, we're going to have to squeeze four large suitcases and four medium-sized people into a tiny rental car! Berlin is my favorite city (Vienna being a close second, but not on the itinerary for this trip) and I'm sad to leave, although I have to say that the saddest departure so far was leaving sunny La Palma, where we spent the first week of our journey eating and drinking non-stop (not our fault--my aunt, who lives there with her two incredible Spanish hunting dogs and her husband--seemed intent on plying us with as much Spanish champagne as humanly possible). We also, of course, sat on the beach and baked (my girlfriend was so worried about the sun, rightly so with her fair complexion, that she used SPF 50 sunblock!); went on a truly incredible hike through the mountains, a hike which included 13 tunnels that had to be carefully navigated lest you hit your head on the sharp rocks above (which we all did at least once, except my uncle); and just generally enjoyed the tropical islands breezes and sunlight (the island is very temperate, not too hot, and was apparently the inspiration for Madonna's "La Isla Bonita").

I promise there will be a more thorough explication in about a week, but I'm worried I might run out of time soon, so I better go. I miss you all and hope everyone is fairing well in my absence.

leavin' on a jet plane...

2005-06-05T09:39:00.000-04:00

April and I are leaving tomorrow for a three week trip to La Palma (one of the Canary Islands, owned by Spain, but off the coast of North Africa) and Germany (Berlin and Cologne) to sit in the sun, swim and visit (my) relatives. We'll have very sporadic internet access while we're gone (in stark constrast to our in-house wireless) and, therefore, I probably won't be responding to posts, comments or emails until June 26th.

Yes, I'll take pictures (and post them when I get back). Yes, I'll miss you all terribly. :) I hope everyone's having a lovely summer!

~Aviva

new look

2005-05-28T18:22:00.000-04:00

I know you'll all be incredibly shocked, but I got my hair cut yesterday! Okay, actually, I got my hair cut in February (my hairdresser took about 7-8 inches off the length and gave me honey-blonde highlights), but yesterday I decided that just the decrease in length wasn't enough. So, I got my hair layered, and I have to say, after the inital shock at the fact that my curls now brush my shoulders (!), I have to say that I absolutely love it. Why didn't I do this sooner? Oh, and I got new glasses today as well (although they won't be ready until next week). I told the clerk that I wanted something totally different and he was really incredible--found me at least five pairs that I actually liked (a big feat, since I seem to always end up with exactly the same glasses everytime I get a new prescription). My new glasses are sort of cat-eyed, but with polygonal edges, and have gorgeous, metallic teal on the inside of the rims (brown on the outside). I'm totally in love. Hopefully they'll arrive before I leave for Europe!

2005-05-28T18:20:00.000-04:00

Now that's the life...

2005-05-25T22:08:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, not reluctantly, but with a bit of trepidation, I competed in my first horse show since I was about 12 years old. All in all, the experience was incredibly rewarding and not nearly as traumatizing as my memories of childhood show experiences. My horse (okay, the stable’s horse, but for those few moments he was mine), Cezar, was an absolute dream—he listened, he collected (that pretty thing horses do with their heads, also known as “on the bit”—you’ll see this particularly during dressage shows), he was calm and sweet and perfect. And to make up for all the near-misses of my childhood, I came out of the adult intermediate division as Champion (two 1st place ribbons and two 2nd place ribbons), although I should add the caveat that there were only three people in my division. Still, I could have gotten third. And, as one of my fellow riders pointed out, if we had ridden in the Open division instead (considered more advanced) we would have gotten our asses kicked by 13-year-olds! The jumps in my division were slightly shorter than I’m used to jumping during class (only about 2 feet), but I think it’s probably a good thing to start slow. Maybe when I show again in August or September I’ll take a risk and join the Open division…

A few pictures, taken by the lovely April who, despite the fact that she claims she can’t use my digital camera, took some great shots.

Such nice head carriage...I think Cezar's my dream horse.

I know, it's a tiny jump. But don't we look pretty going over it?

Hello world

2005-05-17T20:53:00.000-04:00

I've been haunting LiveJournal for a while now, but I thought it was finally time to transfer some of my personal posts to a format I actually would want to share with my real world friends. I've made too many new online buddies on LJ to want to post personal pictures and such stuff on that site. On the other hand, Blogger and LJ seem like good ways to keep in touch since I know we're all often too busy to email or call regularily. So, below, I've reposted a number of my old LJ posts from the past few months and I hope to update this site regularily. Feel free to comment or drop me a line to say hi.

dear nbc...you suck!

2005-05-16T23:54:00.000-04:00

I'm incredibly furious that NBC cancelled my new favorite television, Law and Order: Trial by Jury, so I wrote them an angry email:

****
To Whom It May Concern:

I would like to register my sincere and deep disappointment that NBC did not sign on Law and Order: Trial by Jury for another season. I’ve been a long-standing fan of the NBC network and was very pleased to see this innovative, sophisticated and intelligent new Wolf spin-off grace the airwaves in March. I particularly appreciated that the show’s two main characters were women, accompanied by a varied and accomplished cast of supporting and guest stars. Most television shows—while purportedly presenting a “diverse” and/or “balanced” cast—are, in fact, still disturbingly skewed towards the masculine despite the supposed equality of our society.

I was hoping that Trial by Jury signaled an end to this trend. Looking at NBC’s 2005-2006 lineup, I see less and less that I would actually have any interest in watching; the network’s standards seems to have lowered considerably in the past few years, substituting more and more quality dramas and sitcoms, with rich, textured plots, well-developed characters, and narrative substance (Trial by Jury was one such show), with insipid drivel. On the one hand, I’ve noticed several more reality television shows crop up, much to my chagrin, since reality television is at best mildly entertaining (in a mindless sort of way), and at worst a carnivalesque freak show. On the other hand, the description for Inconceivable, the show NBC has chosen to replace Trail by Jury, reads like the back cover of badly written and ill-conceived porn.

Furthermore, while I cannot assert any real knowledge of company finances, I would imagine that a show with some chance of syndication (and the Law and Order shows have proved time and again that they are incredibly popular, especially in reruns) would be a far better investment than any reality show or drama that only caters to the lowest common denominator.

Overall, I’m very sorry to see that NBC is doing away with some of its more intelligent programming, such as Law and Order: Trial by Jury. I can only hope that this disturbing series of replacements does not become a trend. Many of the programming changes speak very poorly to NBC’s integrity as a network, and I doubt I am your only previously loyal viewer who would not hesitate to move on and find quality television elsewhere if this disappointing regression continues.

Sincerely,
ADV

OMG, that was, like, the best prom ever!

2005-05-16T01:19:00.000-04:00

What a lovely weekend. Today, I went to my department's end-of-the-year party. I had a nice time talking with a few of my professors--one of whom I was convinced was avoiding me (I had no theories as to why, but I was obviously just being paranoid because she acted completely normal and actually sought me out today at the party) and one of whom I absolutely adore, but who's been in NYC all semester so I hadn't seen or spoken with him recently. Good end to a good weekend.

On Saturday morning, April, Amy, and I went to the outlet mall and shopped for about six hours. I haven't been shopping in ages, and after working so hard all semester I'm not ashamed to say it was a cathartic experience. In any case, I bought three pairs of shoes. (I really did need new shoes; for example, I have one pair of shoes that I love, but that were so rundown that my feet consistently got when if I wore the shoes in the rain. Sad, I know, but now they've been replaced.) My favorite purchases are my pretty brown slingbacks and the three button-down summer cotton shirts I found at the Aeropostale outlet for $3 each! I know I'm cheap--I don't believe in spending more on clothes than I would on, say, a nice meal (rarely, I'll make exceptions to this rule)--but you'd never know it from looking at my closet. I'm very good a finding deals.

Anyway, on to the prom! ;) One of my fellow grad students thought it would be fantastic idea to have a prom party (in a very, very ironic way), and, in spite of my initial skepticism, it was a lot of fun. I dressed up--long black velvet dress with glittery gold flames (what I'd like to call sophisticated tacky chic)--and did my hair (a lot hairspray was involved) and put on makeup (full-on makeup, not my more common eyeliner/lipstick combo) even though I was a little nervous that I would be the only one dressed up (especially considering several of my professors were going to be there). I wasn't the only one, thankfully, and one of my friends even wore her sister's old bubble skirt from the 80s. Anyway, it was terribly amusing to slow dance with April to "Bette Davis Eyes," and, of course, it was great to chat with people I hadn't seen/talked to in a while.

Releasing a great, big sigh of relief...

2005-05-10T17:43:00.000-04:00

For a moment I stop and look around me and wonder: What's that incredible feeling of lightness and serenity I feel? Where did that come from? I haven't felt that way in...well, longer than I can even remeber. And then I realize. I'm elated. I'm happy. I'm done. I feel a bit like frolicking in the park like a puppy. Because yes, folks, I am officially done with coursework! No more writing what other people want me to write. No more writing until the wee hours of the night because I can't seem to make myself work ahead of time (okay, there may be some of that still in my future, particularily if I ever publish anything, but probably not for more than one paper at a time).

I did go to class today, but it's a pedagogy class so that I can learn to teach freshman (oy) how to write. It's very different--there's no final writing assignment, no one's grading my work; I'm just trying to come up with a good syllabus and reading assignments and writing prompts. And, so far, I'm loving it.

Springtime is here in Rochester. The flowers are blooming (I know this because I've been sneezing every five minutes, but as soon as the Claritin kicks in I'm sure that will stop), the grass is green, the sun is shining, and it's hot. I'm sure I'll be complaining about the heat in a few short weeks, but for now I've spent six months freezing my butt off and I'm thrilled with the idea of sweating a little and soaking up some sun. I had lunch with a friend I hadn't talked to in ages today, and we sat on the grass and ate wraps and drank smoothies. Perfect.

Oh, speaking of friends, now that it's summer (well, in terms of the school year anyway), I'm going to dedicate the next week or so to catching up on email, phone calls, and letters. If you haven't heard from me lately--if I owe an email or if I've been incredibly negligent at commenting or responding to comments on posts--you'll probably hear from me very soon. And, if not, drop me a line and remind me (nicely!) that I should get in touch. And I will. I promise.

fight for your right to paartay

2005-05-01T02:55:00.000-04:00

Or not. Actually, I would have very much liked to stay home tonight, like a little mole in my little burrow, and work. Or, at least, pretend to work. But my girfriend and I were invited to a housewarming party by a friend who always comes when we throw parties and who's very sweet, and so, despite the fact that I have mountains of writing to do in the coming week, I felt obligated to go. I say "I" and not "we" because my gf has to finish a potential journal article that's supposed to be submitted tomorrow and since we felt that someone from the household should make an appearance at the party and we didn't feel it would be right to send the dog, I took a hit for the team. Always the martyr. That's me.

On the upside, I got at least five compliments on my new stiletto boots and a couple compliments on my whole outfit, which was very fulfilling. Gosh, I don't get out enough. Despite all the compliments and friendly mingling with other disaffected students suffering from the end-of-semester-"I'm unmotivated"-blahs, I managed to only stay at the party for an hour and now intend to try and do some work even though it's after midnight. (And now I have "Into the Woods" stuck in my head--"One midnight gone," etc.--because that's the scary [lyrics for every occasion] way my mind works.)Good night, ya'll. Time to party with my paper elves. I have to keep them well-amused so they'll write my papers for me while I sleep.