home

the week was spent writing (20 p turned into 25) an attempting to do reading for classes. it vaguely worked. the draft is done.

now i am home, in arcata, happy as a clam. kinetics today and through the weekend (expect photos), much good food, and, well, relaxed. may or may not write.

happy long weekend!

paper writing

rufus wainwright.


bowl of chocolate chips.


igoogle translator


box of kleenex.


mason jar of water


stacks of books and partially opened blinds.

page 12 of 20. thundercats are go!

Hurrah!

congratulations to the many friends graduating today! all those lucky people on the semester system, who don't go to the big h, and thus have graduation a reasonable amount of time after classes end rather than waiting a few weeks....

anywho


graduation!

grown up!

wahoo!

hope they're having the loveliest of celebratory times!

a spring time walk

from my window at work, gazing longingly out at the sunshine through the (now flowerless) magnolia



and off i go!

outside the social sciences research building, bikes locked to the flowering trees (i don't know what they are, but these beautiful pink things are everywhere)

not that there aren't plentiful bike racks, but some have decided the pink trees are better, slender as they are



moving away from the ssr building in all its gothic glory. no ivy on this one, but i will take a photo of the broader courtyard, where the unfurling leaves are a glorious shade of green that are slowly overcoming windows and the carved faces of muses and scholars



traipsing past the lab school, with its fragrant rows of lilac bushes that i can only just resist running my hands through or plucking blossoms off of (secret: i pinched a few flowers and held them up to my nose for much of the walk). don't you wish your elementary school had lilac bushes to hide in?



past this effervescent and enthusiastic shared garden on kendall (or dorchester?) - both are overwhelmed with shades of green and flowers at the moment and make me smile




to my new building! as of september, i will be living on the top floor of this lovely old luxury resort, in a wonderfully spacious one bedroom with a view out over the lake. i cannot wait to make it mine.

(inspired more than a little by eurolush)

senses

so i read this last night.

helps that it came with an intense portrait:


really, though, it's an incredibly intriguing portrait of an artist losing that which drives his art, namely, in this case, a chef losing his sense of taste via tongue cancer.

chefs fascinate me. food fascinates me. the food described in this article is, well, a little too avant garde for my tastes, i believe. i mean, i'd love to try it if someone else was paying for the violet white chocolate and olive coated strawberries. or the four course menu described:

"The meal was almost comically elaborate, involving twenty-four courses and costing three hundred and seventy-five dollars, with wine. The food starts off at the savory end of the spectrum, and slowly turns sweeter, concluding with coffee, in the form of crystallized candy. Most items could be eaten in a bite or two, but the procession took four and a half hours. I had liquefied caramel popcorn in a shot glass, and a bean dish that came on a tray with a pillow full of nutmeg-scented air. The plate of beans was placed atop the pillow, forcing the aroma out. I sampled a “honey bush tea foam cascading over vanilla-scented brioche pudding,” in the words of the young man who brought it. There was also a dish centering on a cranberry that had been puréed and then re-formed into its original shape. The berry was then prepared on a device called the Antigriddle, which Achatz had helped design. The Antigriddle froze the bottom of the berry but left the top soft."

exciting, yes. $375? nah... not for me.

but the photos of the food are beautiful


Gelled sweet potato, brown sugar, and bourbon, tempura-fried on a torched cinnamon stick.


Dehydrated bacon wrapped in apple leather.



A cylinder of honeydew with vinegar, served in mint-infused gelatin.


i guess, go read the article. (and the one about genius which reminds me of the discussions about the difference between historical and scientific objectivity we've been having in my anthro of history class)

but things like this, that emphasize the importance of smell so much, make me wonder what doctors/scientists would make of my mom. or my aunt for that matter. neither of them have a sense of smell. yet they're both incredible cooks. but if, as this article says, apples and onions taste the same, how is that possible? i mean, my mom cannot smell anything - great for changing dirty diapers, not so great when she talks about wanting to have a perfume - but somehow she can make a mole poblano or a carefully spiced jambalaya to die for. and she knows when things taste bad. when the spices are off.

apparently, the sense of smell is tied incredibly strongly to memory. i wonder if this has something to do with my mom's memory problems.

blindness, deafness - not as uncommon as we'd like them to be, but people cope. apparently, lacking a sense of taste makes eating uninteresting and can lead to people starving. and having no sense of touch, well, people experience that in patches, but being completely without? i can't fathom it. comparatively, having no sense of smell is easy, livable. still, it would be good to know why she doesn't have it. she never has. her sister lost it after an illness as a child. i think her mother also didn't have it. not sure though.

yesterday/today

i didn't realize quite how it would hit me.

i spent yesterday shaky and freezing, exhausted, with stomach pains and an inability to focus. i had to give a presentation, appear knowledgeable about countries i have never studied before and theories i'm only starting to get comfortable with, even if i don't really agree. i almost started crying throughout the day multiple times. i don't like this fear.

i talked to my mom and dad last night. mom talked to jody on the phone yesterday and said she sounds optimistic and in fighting spirits. we're all supposed to start making her hats, as she will not wear a wig. they're flying her to san francisco (ucsf) instead of portland - it's minimally closer to home, she has family there, specialists are the best, etc. she'll pull through. that's all i can think.

it's all knocked out my own immune system, and i've managed to develop a sore throat/cold/feels on the way to a sinus infection over night. going to make this even more fun.

two weeks til i go home. i have to finish at least one paper before i leave, preferably more. one professor (the considerate, young one) has cut down our reading for the remaining weeks and decided to make our final a multiple-day take home rather than an 8-hour take home. i could kiss him.

that's life right now. i watched the past three episodes of brothers & sisters last night as i was in desperate need of a break. i do think that it's one of the best shows on right now.... and sally fields is a remarkable actress. that's that. we're all pushing through.

worry.

jody has stomach cancer. discovered monday, when she had emergency surgery to remove some masses in the lining of her stomach that were blocking her intestines. up in salem, visiting kirsten (her younger daughter) at college. hours and hours from home, and it's likely they'll head to portland to see specialists before they go back to arcata. glenn (husband) and mariah (older daughter) have both gone up north. while i'd like to say how is it possible that she didn't know?, i can't. she's jody, she pushes herself and ignores obstacles, that's how.

as much as over the years all the gymnastics girls have thanked our stars that we were not her real daughters, jody was a mother to us - we spent at least twelve hours a week with her, usually more, especially during competition season with those six hour drives, fourteen hour meet days, and nights spent in shared beds only to wake it up and do it over. she pushed us all, knew our weaknesses, knew our potential. when we stopped competing, she drew us into coaching and judging, choreographing and being models for the younger girls. she was controlling, she was manipulative, she discouraged us in any pursuits outside of gymnastics and pushed her daughters in impossible ways. but since graduating, we've all come back, stayed connected in some way or another to the team, whether continuing to judge, just dropping into practice, or what have you. and she's sick. so sick. none of us knows how sick. she probably doesn't know how sick.

for me, it's more than gymnastics. she's been a second mom since i was three; in elementary school i feel like i spent as much time at their house as at my own, playing ponies, accompanying jody on errands, listening to her tell me to go for more, that i was an old soul and had so much ahead of me. our families do all our holidays together, random dinners, massive card games. i always complain - i have nothing new to say to them, jody always comments on my weight, they laughed off my academic aspirations long ago and now it's just oh goody you get to travel lots! - but i always go. i can't ever tell how much my mom actually likes jody, but she's one of her only friends at home. and she must be terrified. both of them. all of them.

not knowing is the worst. i can't say they caught it early - i don't think they did - but perhaps the surgery will forestall things. chemo is a definite, but who knows where. they may turn into my family from six years ago - half a week at home, half a week at the hospital on rotating schedules. mariah's about to graduate, kirsten's just finishing her freshman year.

they're a family full of tensions, many centered around jody's pushiness, bossiness, stridency. as much as i've disliked her at times, i've never not admired her. she gets her way. she pushes those other coaches and judges around until they do what is right and what is fair. she started her own business and has made it very successful. she is incredibly strong, incredibly fit, and has the life that she's always wanted. and she's had it for years. she reads, she coaches, she teaches, she gardens, she runs her own life and that of her family. and being out of control of her own body must be hitting her hard. she'll fight it though. her mother fought it off last summer. she's years younger and she can do it now. she has to. as caitlin (another gym girl) said, "for all she is, Jody has been a big part of our lives." i think that is the easiest way to put it. and in our hearts and our heads, we're all giving our biggest pre-competition cheers and whistles and russian high pitched screams for her right now.

deja vu dining

thanks nytimes dining section critics. thanks for your ridiculously surprised assessment of olive garden, tgi friday's, cheesecake factory, and the like. thanks. thanks for making us plebes feel a little less idiotic for, as you noted, creating long waiting lists at these places on saturday nights. not that i would choose most of these places myself on a saturday night, but still, they have their definite appeal and special place in my memory.

nuestros amigos de los Ivy

the mellon conference was friday afternoon and saturday evening. i wasn't presenting, just there to listen. all graduate students, presenting everything from dissertation proposals regarding the geography of the americas from wwii onward to almost final versions of chapters about asian slaves in 17th century mexico and land reparations in post violencia colombia. some of it was fascinating, some of it was dull as all hell.

at the talks themselves, commentary from the visiting professors was generally the most entertaining part. always prefaced with very good, or on intriguing project, or so much potential, many of the comments hit at the root of larger issues, sticking points in definition of terms, and especially the boundaries of projects, either temporally or spatially. mauricio was often the cruelest, but that's just him and he softened it with joking asides, but overall the professors actually seemed interested and invested in student projects. perhaps they're just good at faking. i'd like to think not.

the older students all seemed to know each other, and while i did talk to some people from both schools, i mostly stuck with my chicago folks. i contributed minimally, but because there was so little time for questions/comments after each presentation, i didn't feel like pushing it. one of my ta's from the big h was there and i talked with him, as well as the two other guys i'd had classes with, but the yalies were rather asocial in general (as we'd been warned) and we had plenty of fun ourselves.

dinner on friday night was fabulous. good food, good wine, and incredibly entertaining company. dain and mauricio sang duets for quite a while - emilio refused to join. some of the students got rather tipsy. dain made numerous ridiculous and somewhat inappropriate comments about pot, getting hit on in bars, and just wanting to have one disco hit, touring for a year, and then going back to teaching. and just watching katz, meyer, and womack in their booth, with their glasses of scotch/wine/whiskey whatever, three of the grandfathers of mexican history - amazing. of course, once most of the profs had headed home, womack was surrounded by admiring young women (there was actually a pretty even split, maybe even favoring women amongst the students) before wandering down michigan ave with his glass in his hand on our way to a bar.

all in all, it makes me tremendously sad that this is probably my only time attending as the funding has run out. perhaps they will manage to find new funding somewhere. i sincerely hope so.

swim time

morocco is only 6 weeks away and i will need a swimsuit. a new one. because last year's, well, it's a bust. partly because it's a tankini, partly because my boobs fall out of it.

so here are some thoughts. thoughts that involve boobs. because, really, that's where problems happen.

from anthropologie, about $100 more than i want to spend, but so cute! probably also would not hold my boobs.


from llbean, home of the well constructed, very wide selection of suits for many body types. comes in my cup size, and i like the way that a halter looked last year. definite possibility. also comes in black checks.


the rest of these are jcrew, which i have also heard good things about.

i think this first one would look better with bigger boobs (me), but it's still a little odd.


pretty sweet, and comes in a brighter blue, but i think the polka dots might be a bit too big.



this is a lot like the llbean one, just in a solid color. i've been fantasizing about a kelly green suit, so this might be it.



and if i was slender enough to wear a bikini, this is the one i would get. it's from anthropologie and is the cutest thing i've seen in a while. couldn't tell you exactly what it is that i love so much, but i just do.