recovery

merry christmas everyone!

or heppy christmas as the queen would say


and i suppose today is actually boxing day, so happy boxing day as well. i imagine dad the post man will come home with a few more things from those people who still give their postmen thank you gifts the day after christmas. we do already have a lovely bunch of cookies and chocolates and honey and such, but can you ever have too much food at the holidays?

holidays were mostly wonderful. christmas eve party was preceded by massive amounts of tamale and mole making in the caset home


tamale mama

steamy pot of tamales

an armful of tamales

don't they make the perfect holiday food all wrapped up like presents? so yummy... so pretty...

what else.... lots of kitchen gadgetry and movies and books for christmas, everyone loved the things i gave... i now have at least 3 sets of canisters, probably the loveliest being from krb - vintage nesting tins in sage that say coffee, sugar, and flour

i love cooking implements.

what else..... oh plenty... ill try to take a picture of the outside of hte house all lit up at some point before we stop turning on the lights. the roof says POE. can you figure it out?

holidays at home

holidays at home mean

people in the co-op talking about solstice plans
the npr station advertising its pagan dance music hour
days when i'm in a skirt, tights, and a sweater and the rest of the town is wearing big coats
decorating everything inside. and plugging in the lights that my dad has hung outside.
constant rain. or drizzle. or fog.
screeches from the highway at least twice a day
spending evenings curled up with friends, board games, and movies
reading somewhat trashy fiction while drinking many mugs of tea and hot chocolate
cooking for hours with mom - today was mole and chicken, tomorrow is tamales

home this time also means taking care of mom with a bad cold. making tea and toast, trying to keep her in bed, keep her from shouting, keep her from going to work so that she can be healthy for christmas. also means that i didn't get the house to myself for my first days home as i was expecting. she's very frustrating when she's sick, because she doesnt let herself get better. i mean, i understand to a degree - bed gets boring and things need doing, but i'm here, my dad had at least one day off this week and we can get things done. i made dinner almost by myself, i vacuumed, i decorated, i helped dad move things out of the living room so that it actually looks livable. she still sounds like marlena dietricht on a very smoky day, but doesn't feel quite as shitty. hopefully even better by the big party on monday.

shocking similarities

is it just me, or does she look like addison shepherd from grey's? i guess private practice now.



but still. shocking similarity. i think it's just in that photo though.

no way kate walsh is making that face.

(thanks prungay boys for prunway photos)

these are a few of my favorite things....

Borrowed from blackbird....

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?

wrapping paper, most assuredly. generally recycled from whatever we received last year. occasionally cloth bags.

2. Real tree or artificial?
real. so long as i can convince my parents and find one that's not sprayed (my mom is allergic)


3. When do you put up the tree?
well, now that i dont live at home, as soon as i get there and convince the fam that we still need one.


4. When do you take the tree down?
sometime around new years. i believe these questions are better applied to christmas lights, as my family does that with or without me. christmas lights go on on St. Nick's day (dec. 6) and go off bit by bit starting on new years.


5. Do you like eggnog?
i love eggnog. real, store bought, fat free, whatever. eggnog icecream.... mmmmmm


6. Favorite gift received as a child?
hmmm.... i believe that would be a tie between my addy doll (which i helped pay for and received at the same time as a faaabuuulous black and silver sparkly dress that i still wear for dress up parties) and my doll house with all its little tiny pieces of furniture.


7. Do you have a nativity scene?
we have a mexican tin one, tiny and wrapped in tissue paper, that i always put up because it's beautiful. christmas is not a religious holiday in my household.


8. Hardest person to buy for?
dad and brother, about equally. dad this year. i don't want to buy any more fishing lures or ties.


9. Easiest person to buy for?
krb. i always find a million things for her.


10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
some of the aunts have been known to send awful clothing.


11. Mail or email Christmas cards?
mail. not very many - mostly i send thank you notes that serve the same updating people on my life purpose.


12. Favorite Christmas Movie?
oh, i don't know.... the claymation christmas special, i believe.



13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
depends. whenever i starts seeing things that are perfect. i love buying presents, but they have to jump out at me as the perfect gift for a person, which means that i still end up doing much shopping in the days before christmas for those people who haven't yet been found.



14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
maybe as a white elephant....


15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
cranberry orange relish. and satsumas. and the tamales i make with my mom.


16. Clear lights or colored on the tree?
colored. many of them.


17. Favorite Christmas song?
the holly and the ivy, silent night, i like a lot of them....


18. Travel for Christmas or stay home?
the only time i've spent christmas away from home was when n was in the hopsital. it was the first night he got to spend outside of his hospital bed. we all stayed at the family house across the street and my dad made him laugh by blowing raspberries on his stomach.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers?
yes. i might have to sing it though.


20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
we actually having a shepherdess. she's vaguely witchlike and has a sparkly purple skirt... i believe my mom traded from her back when she still did craft fairs.


21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?
christmas eve is generally uncle tim's box, everything else christmas morning.


22. Most annoying thing about this time of year?
decorations/sales/songs before thanksgiving. crushing crowds. twelve days of christmas at the family/friends christmas eve party. and having to explain what i'm doing to every adult there.


23. What I love most about Christmas?
Finding the perfect present for someone. Decorating. Christmas carols. Going to krb's on christmas afternoon for quiddler and small children. family christmas walk at the beach. making tamales. too many things. i love the holidays.

clean and clear

home state. california. apologies for neglecting while touring, but 6 "beds" (read couches/futons/air mattresses) in 13 nights across 3 metropolitan areas (5 cities, i believe) does not make for the best posting conditions. tonight will mark the last stop before home, and as it is my god parents' home, which is essentially home, i do not mind. warm hugs, showers i'm used to, and an actual bed that i have slept in dozens of times make this almost the real thing.

in any case, brief highlights from caset's tour across the northeast, in which she managed to stay one step ahead of the major grossness that is now hitting it full force. so ha. nary a delayed flight or missed bus.

much of boston has already been highlighted.
the final day/evening was spent with:
> frustrated academic searches (i shall never understand archives that won't let me take photos of their images if they won't scan/copy them for me)
>a divine tapas dinner with the lovely anna, my thesis advisor from last year
>trivia night with em and her law school friends - i contributed sambuca and basalt
>followed by a highly entertaining chat with gregorio, one of the most amusing people i have ever met. "you're looking for a donor, right?" "ooohhh so that's why you were so insistent on seeing me." (very loudly to the bar at large) "i use my high speed internet to watch porn. so does she. she's also looking for a donor. anyone interested?"


next day greyhound dash to queens and rs's lovely apt (which she shares with mdm and at) for baking and a long desired reunion. we realized that the majority of our friendship has been conducted long distance, as we only got close last march or so. wonderful to see her face to face. spent the next couple days shuttling around the city to see various friends, often accompanied by the fabulous miss ebk. plenty of good eats and shopping and the moma:


martin puryear's exhibit at moma is soaring and glorious. the sculptures feel completely liberating and joyous. i don't know how interwoven wood strips and huge magnifications of farming equipment (amongst many) can emote so, but if you're anywhere near ny, do go.


giant paper masala dosa for a much belated bday for rs. eat my dosa. enjoy the humor in the amount of food inside the dosa.


and for my father, from their shop at the union square gift market:
because he fosters a tender spot in his heart for teddy. and how could i resist that jolly look? visit the unemployed philosopher's guild for more silliness.


to dc on friday morning. reunion with the other third of frammey (ebk and myself being the other 2/3), miss fchm at her office in dupont circle. where someone has established the dream bookstore/coffeehouse/bar that krb, lsl, and i had planned. later, reunion with friends from cty, adventures with first year lawyers, a fancy dinner at an overly snooty and completely white (marble, hanging flowers/leaves, lights, tables, dishes, oddness) restaurant, a visit to the wonderful national portrait gallery/museum of american art. i like dc. i like free museums. and good public transportation.

i do not like taxis without meters and wintry mix. nor do i like feeling poor. but i believe i managed my money at least decently this trip, while still finishing my christmas shopping and buying myself a few key items of clothing. and seeing juno. more on that later, but everyone should see it.

now to help pack the rv for the trip all the way homeward tomorrow.

sleepytime

so traveling is not terribly conducive to posting. nor to sleeping, apparently. i'd forgotten how late my big h friends stay up.

anyways. being here has been enormously fun thus far - i've seen many many people, visited all my favorite haunts, and generally had a glorious, if exhausting time. kong three times in as many nights - it's been completely redecorated and looks a swanky now, though the food is still as greasy and groan inducing as ever. tealuxe makes me happy, as does curry chicken soup from le's and mojitos at casablanca.

the show was glorious - i'm so proud of hrgsp and its production values, even if the board is apparently falling apart at the seams. all japaned out - gorgeous kimonos, beautiful set, lovely voices - it was so odd to sit down and realize i'd had nothing at all to do with it. for the first time in four years, my name was no where in the program. actually, that's not quite true, as i donated enough to be listed as a patron. but still, that's only on an insert.

ball afterwards was quite fun, and though i forgot to take any pictures, plenty have been posted on facebook. they remind me that i need to start going to the gym and eating only cucumbers or something. but oh well. we danced and sang and drank lots of champagne, then danced and drank some more, and finally ended up with only grads (plus apope) at the kong before finally heading to bed. the last two nights have been 4am bedtimes.... such ridiculousness.

apope decided mid ball that we were each other's default date, so, as with last year's qball, we danced and held hands, followed each other around, and generally behaved as though we were on a date. which is always fun, though i don't think i would ever actually date that boy, despite his sweetness. i don't know that he'd actually date me, either. mel g and i crashed in his room, which, in my overly champagned and vodka'd state, i had rather hoped i'd be crashing in by myself, so that if nothing else, i could get a nice cuddle out of him. in the long run, it's of course better that that didn't happen. but still.

i apologize for no photos ... oh well, i'll remember to pull out my camera in ny and dc. tomorrow is library day and tonight i am retiring early as my throat hurts and i can barely keep my eyes open.

accomplished!

remember that list i posted this morning? check check check! almost all of it. still have to pack. and write cards (which can totally happen on the plane) and buy a book to read on the plane. and clean up the kitchen a bit. but the papers are both done and turned in. i am done with my first quarter of graduate school!

pictures of my productivity and holiday spirit:




so many cookies! so tiny! and not sure what to do with all of them as the prunway party i was going to bring them to fell through.... i'll find people to give them to.


christmas lights! reflected in the kitchen window....

and the newly decorated wall. hurrah for sticky tack!


and actually did start packing.... i love the setting out of clothes before packing.


now have to decide which suitcase to use. always feel cooler with my backpack, but with the gifts and the number of shoes i want to bring, etc.... i might just have to go with the normal suitcase. oh well...


off i go tomorrow morningQ

hot mess and a half

life is both terribly dull and really really exciting right now. mostly just busy though.

namely, this is because i leave for boston tomorrow! waaaaah - so excited. But, of course, i have a bazillion things to do today, which is why i woke myself up too early and am now giving my brain a couple more minutes to adjust before i start.

most importantly, i have to edit and conclude my paper for dain. it's a rather boring paper, being a lit review and all, but in drafting i put in a few rather horrid puns that i need to go find now and remove. because, somehow, i don't think he'll appreciate them. the paper is long enough, has 50-odd sources (I know! when did i even skim 50 sources!?!?!?), and i think does what it's supposed to. if not, well, i'm screwed. and don't care.

if that gets done at a decent hour (i.e. before 1, which should be very possible), part of the afternoon will also be spent attempting to finish (not just conclude, but actually write the last section) my colonialisms paper. which i wrote 8 pages of yesterday sitting in the library, something i generally hate. but i did NOT want to haul even more books home. so i randomly decided to look at A Passage to India as an imperial/anti-imperial novel (i know, i'm a historian, but i'm also a lit person and the prof seems okay with that. hopefully.). and have now skimmed and summarized too much criticism. i hate that that's all i do as a grad student.

other things that need doing today:
laundry, returning various books, writing a few more holiday cards, turning in my financial aid papers, buying gifts for my girls here, baking cookies, finding something for rp, oh, and packing. i know that list is actually longer. but if i'm to make it through and still get to watch prunway tonight, i need to start now.

dull post. like my life. but by the end of day, i should have all sorts of reasons to celebrate how exciting my life is!

page 7

slowly working through this paper. slowly slowly slowly. writing literary reviews is not fun. there's little original thought; it's just going over what other people have said and showing how it's applicable or not to what i'm going to say someday. i don't get to go into any of my cool primary material - i.e. no pretty pictures or flowery descriptions. sigh. but about halfway to my page goal and maybe a third of the way through my material. blerg.

other than that, today was really great. brunch with ks, mb, and js - my girls - at medicci. i love love love breakfast food and this omelette - bacon, spinach, and cream cheese - was divine. as were the potatoes. as was having girl talk that, even though our papers came up every once in a while, was generally just silliness about tv and goign home and birthdays.

and then tonight rita and i took a massive target trip.

i got these:


to go with my dress and because they're pretty and shiny....

this because i need more comfy shirts that aren't cardigans:

these to frame the prints i bought for people the holidays


these, powdered sugar and food coloring so that i can make cookies at some point this week

these because they were soooo cheap and i've been wanting something different to eat


and shampoo. since when i thought i bought a bottle of shampoo and a bottle of conditioner the other day, it was actually two bottles of conditioner. dumb. dumb. dumb me.

isn't it amazing what target has to offer? gotta love it.

mmmmmm hott

i want me one of these please! of course, i'd have nothing to talk to him about.... would need much much much brushing up on my classical music first. but really. gorgeous, venezuelan, and extremely talented! hott. with two ts.

last day of nablopomo

i've actually been meaning to do this since the first day....

whenever i say nablopomo it makes me think of a place i visited last summer, casa na bolom in san cristobal in chiapas, mexico. sounds similar, right? it's a beautiful place, and if i go back, i may splurge and spend at least a couple nights staying there instead of in a hostel.

na bolom was the home of danish anthropologist and archaeologist frans blom and his swiss wife gertrude, herself a conservationist, journalist, sociologist, and photographer. it's filled with images of their life exploring the lacandon jungle, objects they collected, and books they read. in the back is a native plants garden, with wonderful little benches where i sat and read anna karenina and wrote postcards. completely peaceful. and all profits go to conserving the jungle they cared so much about.

wonderful library, too. i didn't spend enough time in it to figure out how it's organized, but again, if chiapas becomes my focal point in the future, and especially if anthropological history stays central to my studies, this will become a necessary resource.

i can't believe i only have this one photo of it, and it's just of the garden, but look at the website for more!

i love peter sagal!

and i love facebook. and when peter sagal talks about facebook, i love it even more.


oh balding middle aged men and being your own other drummer.

implicated.

a graduate student, 29, who had just defended his dissertation and was set to receive his degree a week from now, was shot and killed here the week before thanksgiving. the same night, three other students were held up and a fourth fled before the robbers reached him. the student who was killed had no money on him and the others only a few dollars and credit cards.

today the police arrested a 16 year old for the murder and robberies, to which he has admitted complicity. he claims that he was not the one who shot the graduate student, but has said that it was his idea to set out on a robbery spree in the first place, rounding up friends to accompany him along the way.

16. how clearly this brings into perspective where i live. 16. his home is probably no more than 20 minutes away. 16. african american. single mother. sophomore in high school.

am i happy that he's in custody? that he's off the streets? that he won't be shooting any of my friends? that justice will be served and the graduate student's killer punished? is this what they call white guilt?

i hate that he is 16. i hate that he lives so close to our gargoyled and gothic towers. the monstrosity of a library full of books that explain who he is and how he came to shoot a graduate student. from senegal. on scholarship. about to go home and do good, change his world.

prunway night!

i love prunway i love prunway i love prunway!

and i totally guessed tonight's winner and loser on fantasy runway! i'm sooooo good.

spoilers below - sorry krb!

Not that I agreed with the winner - none of them did remarkably well, but i would have chosen kevin, i think. In fact, i agree that this is the hardest challenge they've had so far and i think they all failed rather miserably at doing anything original. but, you know what, making men's wear is very very very difficult - there's no room for forgiveness. in women's wear, if something doesn't fit right, take off the sleeve, add a belt, drape a little, and you can make it work. you don't have to be able to fit a crotch or set a sleeve. but men's wear requires all of that. so for the fact that no one went down that runway without pants or topless, cheers to them! especially considering that they had to do something dressy - a knit shirt wouldn't have been so difficult to whip together (see eliza), but dress shirts and sports coats .... well, they take time. especially if you havent done them before, dont have a mannequin with arms.

anyways, carmen was too ambitions and just failed. had either of those pieces worked, she might have saved herself. but both were ridiculously sad. jack - not so exciting and far too many stripes for my taste, but congratulations on the nice bias pockets and button placket!

don't really remember many in the middle, but i'm very happy that sweet pea stayed and i think that there were a couple others that should have been out there for bottom three, had things been otherwise....

little things to avoid doing work

i passed my language exam! so long as i can get my paper turned in in march, i'll get my masters in june! wahoo!

also, my new down coat showed up today and it's wonderful and lighter than a feather and perfect and i'm keeping it.

i bought fresh mozzerella at the grocery store tonight and it is a wonderful thing.

i have watched four episodes of alias tonight instead of doing reading. i did get some done this afternoon, but not enough. papers due a week from tomorrow. i'm a dumb ass procrastinator. who will not be prepared for class tomorrow. i'll be nauseous anyways, so ill just huddle and not talk.

bc is making me nauseous. and head achey. and i don't like it.

i very much enjoyed this article today.

read this book yesterday and very much recommend it. wish i'd read it over a longer period of time, but i really think it provides some of the best summaries of european and american philosophy i've read. much clearer than profs, than friends (sorry xwn), and whatever attempts i've made to understand it through reading the stuff itself.


enjoy!

dress debates

as have much much to do in the next 9 days before i leave for boston, decided to get one out of the way today that would just stress me out more later - finding a dress for the ball. thus, instead of going to the library after work, i went downtown to filene's basement (such a disappointment compared to the boston one!), nordstrom rack, and macy's. 4 hour shopping trip. utterly exhausting. but did find a dress, even if i'm not 100% in love with it and spent a little more than i had planned, especially for a dress that i'm not passionate about.

anyways. here it is:



it was more on sale at the store than it is on the web, but still $100 (which is a lot for me, especially seeing as how the best dress ever only cost $50). it has pockets, a cute print, is actually a brighter purple and floofier than in the picture, and screams for shiny black patent leather heels and big jewelry, which i shall have to find. buttons, cute skinny sash, and flattering cut on me (despite being much much bustier than the model), but the neckline is a little off and, of course, my arms look wretchedly flabby. but oh well. that's going to happen with any dress.

the plan is this: i will take the dress, with tags still attached and receipt safely guarded in my wallet, to boston with me. i will contemplate it. i will take it shopping with me at the boston filene's and macy's, wherein i will decide if it should be returned and replaced. i will be vaguely sorry to be mean to such a pretty dress, which would be perfect for many a winter party, but may just not have the stuff to make it at the ball. either way, i will not style my hair the way this model has.

in the next ten days i have to:

contemplate this dress some more
read 3 books for class discussion
write a 15 p historiography paper for my guatemala project
write a 10 p paper on as yet unknown subject for colonialism/poco
get my hair cut
digitize all the primary sources i have to avoid carting 20lbs of books home
find presents for my dad and friends i'm visiting
continue going to work/maybe finish cataloguing the library
not get sick. really.
not get sick

amusing things for sunday nights

back in chicago after fabulous long weekend in minnesota. ill write more about it later - right now i need to catch up on some reading. but something to amuse



(thanks projectrungay!)

The Eyre Affair

Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair:

Fforde's first book in the Thursday Next series, welcome to an alternate England where there's a division of the local police dedicated to making sure that people don't publish erroneous copies of classic literature, charlotte bronte's home is a major tourist attraction, and the major debate in society is over who wrote shakespeare's plays (as opposed to religion, politics, etc). Thursday's father is in the Chronoguard and no one ever knows when he's going to show up or how old he'll be. Her uncle is a famous inventor named Mycroft who develops a machine that lets people travel inside books and Thursday's job gets much more interesting. Someone uses the machine to get inside the original manuscript of Jane Eyre and kidnaps, well, Jane! Thursday has to get her back, battling psychopaths and evil corporations in the meantime, before Bronte's masterpiece is destroyed forever.

I love Fforde's writing. he's hilarious and makes the reader feel like she's in on the joke - the books are full of references to literature of all sorts and Thursday's full of snarky comments. the sequels are great fun as well, though i think this first is still my favorite. and cricket is the most popular competitive sport. of course. shoot em up action adventure with austen and dickens references. and rocky horror style renditions of king lear.

The Time Traveler's Wife

for today: Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife. Beautiful romance that KRB adores and i enjoyed thoroughly, even if it's not quite as high on my list as hers. it is a gorgeous piece of writing and a highly original tale of enduring love, despite a rather odd situation. Henry De Tamble is a librarian at the Newberry in Chicago who finds himself jumping in and out of time, without any say in the matter. He meets and falls in love with Clare, and while she continues forward in normal time, he is often out of sync and thus with extra knowledge or lack of information about what is going on. i don't remember why it was that i didn't adore this book as much as i'd hoped - probably expectations set too early - but it is a wonderful lazy afternoon read. despite the premise, don't worry about it being all sci-fi - Henry and Clare are too wonderful to worry about that.

Happy Thanksgiving!

well, i don't know of any thanksgiving books... instead, my favorite cranberry recipes, one of which i am having this tday, the other of which i'll have to wait for til i get home. why do we only eat cranberries at the holidays? they're wonderful and such a pretty color!

Pumpkin Cranberry Bread (recipe care of KRB and what i made for KS's family as a thank you)

In one bowl, mix 2 1/2 cups flour, 2tsp baking powder, 1tbs pumpkin pie spice, and 1/2tsp salt.
In another bowl, mix 2 eggs, 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup oil, 15oz can pumpkin. Mix the two together and fold in 1 cup cranberries. Pour into two loaf pans and bake at 350 for 60 minutes.

Resist if you can! having to wrap the loaves up instead of eating them right away was terribly difficult...




Orange Cranberry Relish


1 bag cranberries, 1 orange (peel and all), 1 cup sugar. put through food processor. enjoy. So much better than the canned stuff. so gorgeous. so tart and sunny in your mouth. add more sugar if necessary.

hope everyone is warm and cozy and full of good food and love, or will be soon

posts for the holidays...

alright. so hopefully this works. i'm heading up to MN for the holidays and am planning ahead by putting some posts in draft form. i will do my best to post them each day, but if it doesn't happen, i apologize. but the book thing should be conducive to this, right?

so for the first one:

Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted



this is another of the books that sits by my bed. well, it did til it got lost in the mail somewhere to my great chagrin. another cinderella story - Ella's under a curse to be obedient, a curse that only her fairy godmother Mandy knows about, as Ella's mother made her promise never to tell anyone before she passed away. therefore, the wicked step mother and stepsisters, off to finishing school, adventures in trying to find the fairy who cursed her and, of course, falling in love with the prince.

someone made a horrible movie of this with Anne Hathaway (whom i love) a few years ago that has very little to do with the book. the book is all about Ella learning about herself, finding the courage within herself to break the curse, growing through the challenges she faces and being a very smart young woman who refuses to give up but always has the help of a friend or two along the way, despite her neglectful father and dead mom. the movie tries to make it all political by turning cary elwes into the evil prince regent who is enslaving the elves etc.

another good girl empowerment book (guess i read a lot of these, don't i?) with enough romance and adventure to keep you going, but definitely appropriate for younger girls. just dont see the movie.

first comes love, then comes....

"A Political Marriage that Never Quite Fit"

isn't that just the perfect headline for that image? i haven't read the article yet, but i just love the photo.

this will not be me

i will find a tenure track position. i will not be teaching at 5 different schools. i will succeed.

nytimes scares me sometimes....

if i had a million dollars...

when i next have money to burn on making my apartment feel like a home/when i move into a smaller, one person apartment next year and really decorate, i will fill it with the following:



and


which would go wonderfully on my love seats

for my walls, a series of prints from here, framed.








dishes from here:





lanterns like this:

and carry an umbrella like that:



and just because, i'll put this on my toilet:


or maybe not....

etsy is a very dangerous thing.

oooops

well, i haven't gone to sleep yet, so it still counts as today. right?
sorry. no book today... i can't get a book out tonight. i've spent the last four hours going through new york times ads from the 1930s looking for travel advertisements for guatemala.... a few of my favorite finds....





and, though it's not to do with travel, it does have the word guatemala in it!

ch-ch-ch-changes

i'm staring birth control pills for the first time ever today. nothing fancy, orthotricyclene low - the ones they'll sell students for $10 a pack to keep us from getting preggers. have decided that 8pm is as good a time as any to take them and have set my cell phone to remind me at least for the next couple days.

i'm a bit worried about this actually. ive just had so many friends for whom birth control has been horrible - weight gain (apparently it's cause the meds increase appetite), break outs, awful mood swings/depression, etc - and i really can't deal with any of those. my doctor told me that i should stay on them for at least 3 months before trying to change, as that's how long my body might take to get used to them, but if i start freaking out, i'm going to go see my friends at the clinic over christmas.

mostly this worry comes from the fact that i'm taking these not so much because i'm having sex - which i'm not and am not likely to anytime soon, though i do want to be safe in case it does happen (please?) - but because of the wretched ups and downs i've been having along with pms (remember those posts from earlier this week?). i'd rather just take one pill that'll keep me from getting preggers to boot than start taking something for my anxiety, too. i know it's a long shot, but if it doesn't help or makes things worse, i'm going to keep trying other brands until something does. i'd ask for recommendations, but apparently everyone's body reacts differently. sigh. dumb hormones.

so we'll see! here goes nothing!

Cold Comfort Farm

Stella Gibbon's Cold Comfort Farm (1932) -



Cold Comfort Farm is set in the 1920s countryside, where Miss Flora Poste has gone to live with distant relatives, chosen for their eccentricity, after the death of her cultured and aristocratic parents. A bit of an Austen tale - Flora wants to write a modern version of Persuasion when she's 53 and intends to spend her life til then collecting material - she takes on the Starkadder family of Cold Comfort Farm as a project to keep her occupied until a husband shows up.

Witty, bubbly, and somewhat in the vein of a feminine Evelyn Waugh without the alcoholism, it's a cheery romp that plays off of all sorts of romantic cliches - eccentric aunt who refuses to leave her room and holds the family in an iron grip, the wil o' the wisp daughter in love with a local gentleman, the hunky talkie loving son, and the awful sex obsessed wannabe novelist who insists on pursuing Flora. Kate Beckinsale is perfect in the part and the aesthetic of the movie is so wonderfully eclectic, romantic, and just silly. as the amazon summary says, the cows are named Feckless, Aimless, Pointless, and Graceless. how much better than that can you get?

upcoming adventures

if i haven't mentioned how excited i am about my upcoming trips lately, whoops. cause it's all i think about these days.

for thanksgiving i'm heading north to minnesota with ks and two first year guys she's also adopted for the holiday. we're leaving weds after i finish up seminar and driving to winona - five to six hours - for a weekend that will include, according to ks, "a trip there includes taking a hunting boat across the river to some bars on the Wisconsin side in the middle of the night;" "the Turkey Bowl, which is a football (the American kind) contest held annually by my extended family on Thanksgiving Day. You do not need to be good at football or even know how to play the game to participate. Also, if someone passes the ball to anyone under the age of 8, it is an unspoken rule that you will pretend to run very hard after them but let them score the touchdown anyway;" and any/all of the following: "bowling, drinking, spending time with my cousins, drinking with my cousins, drinking with people from my high school, sleeping, and eating the best doughnuts you've ever had." sounds like a good time to me! food, drink, family, games, more food and drink....

then, in a little less than three weeks now, i'm heading back east to see all sorts of friends before going back to california for the holidays. stops to include: cambridge, maybe new haven, new york, and dc. three to four days in each place (not including new haven - that'll just be a night if i do stop), many many people to see, a ball!, either the rockettes or the nutcracker, more drinking, more eating, and all the people i love. i talk to someone i'm going to see most days online and each one makes me more excited.

it's not that i don't love being here (i do and more so each day, despite desperate posts), it's just that the people i'm going to see were my life for four years and just know me so much better than people here. mostly of course, its theater people - boardlove! -, but i'm also going to see my cty crowd for the first time in one place since 2004 - somehow they've all ended up in the dc area, aside from me of course -, and rs. rs! who i talk to pretty much every day on gchat, but who i'm going to get to see! and stay with! rs! hurrah!

something else i've been thinking about lately: i talk a lot more here than i have ever before in my life. in class, with friends, i'm chatty. i'm sometimes clever, sometimes snarky - "like the surveyors she was writing about, she didn't venture more than a mile from the border they were drawing." but mostly, i just pipe up more frequently. which, i think, more than anything, shows that this is a good place for me. everywhere else in my life, i've been the listener, the nodder, the ear to unburden to, and it's not that i don't have quiet moments, that there aren't places where i have nothing to say, but that i'm much more willing to interject now. and i love it. who knows what'll happen when i'm back amongst my boisterous friends who are used to quiet me. have i actually changed, or is it just that people here don't like to hear their own voices as much as my friends elsewhere?

Tamora Pierce

alright, confession. this is what i wish i was reading tonight. and i reread them all over the summer... heh. anyways. Tamora Pierce's Tortall series... well, four of them at this point that i've read....

start with the song of the lioness quartet, then the wild magic quartet, then protector of the small, and the daughter of the lioness books. i guess that's the chronological order of them... girl power books set in magical land of tortall... all starts when alanna switches places with her twin brother thom so that she can learn to be aknight shile he learns to be a sorcerer. she disguises herself as a boy, befriends the prince and his great friends, and works harder than anyone else at the palace to earn her place. the other series are all in the same vein - girls/women doing something new, proving their place in male dominated worlds, and changing things for the better. fast paced stories, great friendships, magical creatures, good and evil, conniving enemies, and tons of fun. she has another set of books for younger books - the circle of magic - which i don't like quite as well, but these ones are well worn and have a well-deserved place on my shelves. great for your 5th-7th grade niece/daughter/friend or good to get out of the library for a fun afternoon's indulgence. really, though, well worth the time for some brainless reading for adults, good empowerment reading for girls.

plus, look at the cool covers for the protector of the small series:

It's Noah!!!

This guy is the sweetest, funniest, most talented person i've met in a long time. and he's huge. making costumes for this guy was ridiculous. he's got a 50" chest. but he sings like a nightingale both in tenor and soprano ranges. he was our ralph rackstraw last year in pinafore and when he descended from the sky on a ladder singing and swinging, everyone went crazy. he also sweats like a pig and requires lots of laundry, but he's so willing to help out that it didn't really matter.


if you can't guess which one he is, well.... and listen to the little clip on the article - ignore the dumb harvard jocks - and remember that this is him after playing a football game. there's also a better bit at the end with an orchestra (not so hot) and all. sadly, i don't think he's in mikado this year.... oh well... i hope he gets to sing from here on out.

men who love sidney bristow

am i horribly lame for really enjoying the fact that i'm spending my friday night at home with indian take out, a big glass of wine, and men who love sydney bristow (aka alias)? cause it's highly enjoyable. rp started rewatching the first season a couple weeks in and i jumped in maybe 5 episodes in, so now that she's gone, i've gone back to the very beginning. so much fun. so much better than united fruit and even the pretty photo album style guide books i checked out today.

and boy do i love the men who love sydney bristow. oh vaughn.... oh will.... come love me!

and while i'll never understand why sydney always has her hair down (this is a problem i have with most female super hero/super spy types - doesn't it get in the way!?!?), she does get to wear some pretty cool get ups and use some awesome gadgets. and i really want her house and her wine glasses.

also, bought the black patagonia coat. should be on its way soon. very excited. and looked at myself in a window the other day in passing and i actually looked grown up. it was weird.

lazy bum says good night

that's me tonight. i have stacks of books on the floor next to me. and i have not touched them. i have been watching tv and eating indian take out in my pjs for the past 4 hours. dumb. dumb. dumb. i have so much that i should get done this weekend, especially if i want to enjoy my thanksgiving break and not bring a dozen books with me. so, as usual on friday's (sorry if you're getting sick of it), i'm writing about how i'm planning to do lots of work this weekend. if possible, i'd like to at least write a couple paragraphs.... what i have to turn in in a little less than three weeks is fifteen pages of secondary research. i can throw in some primary stuff if i'd like to, but i think i'll probably just stick with secondary, as there are so many facets of the project i need to work through there, first.

yesterday was n's birthday. i called him twice - once before school and once after dinner. i'm so proud of him... he's such an amazing kid. really. i told js about him, about the accident while she was driving me home after dinner with a visiting prof last night. it felt right - i was more excited about his birthday than is maybe normal for an older sister - and she's the first person here who i've felt comfortable enough with to open up about that. she didn't over react, she just let me tell the story, and understood why his birthday is such a big deal. because it is. he's nineteen. and he's going to be twenty nine. and thirty nine. and it might not have happened. so happy birthday wonder brother.

Dingley Falls

i think this was the best book i read this summer. Michael Malone's Dingley Falls:



it's a quirky small town portrait wrapped up in a mystery... patrician connecticut is shaken up when violently hateful letters start appearing in people's mail boxes and perfectly healthy people of all ages begin dying mysteriously. an amazing cast of characters, all wonderfully complicated and conflicted who, without ever seeming saccharine, get their just desserts. it's a hilarious book, but not a comedy, and a sad book, but not a tragedy. and Malone's writing is just dazzling. i just inhaled this book because his prose skips across the page and i just couldn't stop.

the book is set in 1976 and dingley falls is a cross section of old and young, straight laced, hippy, avant garde and precocious, not necessarily where you expect to find it. a wonderful quartet of society matrons finds themselves in an uproar when one runs off with a visiting beat poet. girls on the edge of becoming teens, experimenting, wanting to jump in the convertible but also depending on the advice of the local priest and very close with their fathers. a batty old woman, last in the line of the dingley founding family, who swears she's seeing strange flashes in the forest.

npr has an excerpt here

jutting breasts

"You don’t even have to wait for the flying spears and airborne bodies that — if you watch the movie in one of the hundreds of theaters equipped with 3-D projection — will look as if they’re hurtling directly at your head. You could poke your eye out with one of those things! Which is precisely what I thought when I first saw Ms. Jolie’s jutting breasts too."

“Beowulf” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Gory violence and a naked Angelina Jolie avatar.


rp and i have committed to not seeing this movie (apparently the giggles i post are for movies i don't want to see). but we are cracking up over this review. thank you nytimes.

The Egypt Game

another childhood favorite, that i actually hadn't thought about in a long time...


Zipha Keatley Snyder's wonderful story about a game of pretend that goes too far. i loved all things egypt as a child, still do in a very romanticized way, and this book was the perfect manifestation of all that fascination. a wonderful play of characters - children from diverse families and backgrounds who come together because of their love of egyptian mythology. together, they make their own imaginary world in an empty lot. it's a reminder of the wonders that can be achieved with an empty shed, some junk antiques, and a lot of pretend. i still love playing pretend, and this book adds that great bit of mystery and investigative digging that made any imagination game so much better.

great book for 3rd - 6th graders, at least as far as i remember it. wonderful adventure story of collaboration and making the most of what you have.