Goodbye 2010

Lots of people seem eager to bid 2010 adieu, but I don't know, it hasn't been the worst year for me. It's been a weird year. I published two papers, wrote a dissertation, got a job, lost a grandparent, graduated, reached a point where I finally felt at home and secure in a routine and group of friends in Birmingham...and then moved 1100 miles away by myself with two cats in a Uhaul. I did a lot of things I've never done before (see: dissertation, uhaul), which makes me feel like 2010 made me braver and stronger. It was maybe a more deeply felt year than most-more sweetly happy times, more intensely sad times, longer stretches of nearly unbearable stress. At any rate: for me, 2010 was one for the books, and soon it will be done. Bring it, 2011.

PS: new year's eve in a new city with no friends or acquaintances or even a TV=drinking a little bottle of champagne by myself (with the cats? does that count as not drinking alone? The cats don't get champagne, though. They have not been good today/ever in their lives and I don't think wine is good for cats anyways), reading The Blind Assassin and going to bed at 11! This somehow makes me nostalgic for my early teen years, when I spent NYE drinking white grape diet rite soda in a champagne glass, watching Dick Clark and trying hard to stay up until midnight while my mom and dad dozed off on the couch.

Holidays

Back in Providence after a long Christmas with my family in Ohio. There was snow and wine and food and family and friends, a good time was had by all.

In my family, many of our holiday traditions revolve around food. My parents are among the last of a kind of solid midwestern type- a generation away from a factory or family farm, with hobbies that include saving money, sticking to a low-cholesterol diet, and paying their bills on time. Christmas has always been a time to let loose, at least in the solid midwestern sense of the word. For us, that means a parade of indulgent food that we only eat once a year. My mom makes six kinds of cookies (a total of 25 dozen), including sugar cookies which we frost as garishly as possible. The highlight is the angel of death, my dad's annual masterpiece

Christmas Eve is Carolina BBQ Pork, Hush Puppies and Coleslaw, followed by church then basically another dinner.

That's Trail Bologna (a local "delicacy"), cheese, apples, pears, crackers, almond cake with cherry filling, and a new addition, gelled cosmopolitans. We tried to make the cosmos in festive holiday molds, but when that failed we put it in a bowl and cut it into wedges. Because we are classy.

Christmas morning involves getting showered and dressed before anyone touches presents. We have fruit salad, Stollen (a german cake-bread thing) and Peach Fizzy, which is actually a recipe for a Bellini with Ginger Ale instead of Champagne. I was about 24 when I figured this out. This year's stollen was a little less bread-like and more sheetcake-like due to my dear sister forgetting to add 1/2 the flour. oops!

To work off all these extra calories, or at least atone for them, Dad and I went on a little hike at a nearby park. It was lovely, and cold.

Even the taxidermied coyotes got in on the holiday spirit.

All in all, a nice restful break. I'm glad to be back in my new home with a few days to organize my life, and excited to start my new job on monday!

Providence

SO. I moved to Rhode Island! After 5 and a half years in Alabama, I am now calling chilly New England my home.

The trip was...what to say about the trip. It was long. It is 1,100 miles from Birmingham AL to Providence RI. Because I am slightly insane and melt down a little when I don't have control over situations, I made this journey in a Uhaul, towing my car. On the shorter, inland route that had fewer major cities but way more mountains. By myself. Well, not by myself entirely, because I had with me as companions my two cats. Knowing that the going would be slow and that I ( and the cats) could only take so much in a single day (and again, see earlier re:insane and needing control), I broke the trip up into three 375ish mile segments and one 90 mile segment. Then I went to get my truck, and surprise, instead of 10 feet+honda civic, it was 17 feet+honda civic. Fun!

As far as four day, 1100 mile journeys across the Appalachians in a Uhaul towing a car with two cats go, it was pretty much ideal. Driving the truck was actually not difficult. I got slightly stuck the first time I got gas, but thanks to some super-helpful truckers (I am guessing they had not so much as seen a lady in several weeks), I not only got out of my jam but also got a lesson on maneuvering a longer vehicle. I could even back it up semi-competently by the end of the trip. The cats were ok. One cat (the simple one) took about 45 minutes to forget she had ever lived anywhere other than a small crate inside a Uhaul and did fantastic the rest of the trip. The other cat (ie helper cat) did not quite thrive. Howling and Wailing, usually calming down only at about the fourth hour of driving. I covered the crate with a blanket and told her it was nighttime which helped a little, if only in muffling the crying.
The drive was pretty-Tennessee and Southern Virginia were all sparkling rivers and snow covered hillsides. Even the less picturesque regions of Appalachia had something lovely about their bleakness. The rolling farmland of Maryland and Pennsylvania reminded me of where I grew up, even though the farms were never quite so pastoral in my little section of Ohio and are long gone anyways. And Oh, once I hit New England...there is something in me that feels so at home in northern rocky woods. The streams and ponds, bare misty trees, dark rocks, winding roads that come around a curve to reveal a cold stony shore. It's so beautiful to me, way more so than a tropical beach.

And now I am here. The movers brought in my things, i'm slowly unpacking. I've been to several grocery stores, found the nearest Wal-mart, Target, and mall, gotten a library card, tried and failed to get a drivers license, made vegetable stock and 3 kinds of soup. My apartment is great although sort of empty at the moment while I save for some real furniture. My two fears-that no one would be nice and that everything would cost an arm and a leg-appear to be unfounded. Everyone I've met has been kind and welcoming-not necessarily the surface friendliness of the south (which I frankly always found kind of fake) or the earnest openness of the midwest, but nice nonetheless. And while gas and rent are more expensive here, produce (my big grocery expense)is cheaper than in B'ham, even without taking the 10% sales tax on groceries in Alabama. The cold is cold, but bearable. The only bad thing so far is the drivers! I swear I have a near-death experience everytime I go out on the road!

All in all, I think I'm going to like it here.

Ben Fold's Genius

I've loved Ben from way back when. This song is one more. Making Levi Johnston's myspace profile into a lovely song takes true talent.

Dr. Busy Bee

In the 30 days since my last update I have:
1. Finished and turned in my (250 page!) dissertation to my committee
2. Made a powerpoint condensing five and half years of work into 50 minutes
3. Successfully defended my dissertation!
4. Went on a whirlwind weekend with my parents-we went hiking at Guntersville State Park, explored huntsville, and got in time for Barbecue on their last-ever trip to Alabama.
5. Made a poster for the upcoming SFN meeting
6. Edited and finalized my (251 page!) dissertation

In the next 6 or so weeks I have to:
1. Go to San Diego for six days for a conference
2. Teach first year students about something science related (next friday? i should figure this out)
3. Run a few last experiments and finalize two manuscripts for submission
4. Go to Providence and find an apartment
5. Pack all my stuff
6. Drive to Rhode Island. With my cats. not looking forward to that.

Not to mention trying to squeeze in as much time as possible with my favorites here in birmingham! It's going to be a crazy few months.

In honor of this, a cat busy bee. Watch the whole thing, the end makes up for the early annoying cat-talk.

Breaktime

So. I have to turn in my dissertation on thursday. A little less than a week. I'm almost done with the writing-just a little bit more of the conclusions, an abstract, and some serious editing to go. 220 pages so far, more than 50,000 words. It feel like a lot, and then I remember that this is five and a half years of my life and it feels like a little less.

I am endlessly tired. You have to understand, I am a girl who considers making it all the way through the daily show staying up "late". And I'm in the Central Time Zone, so that's in bed by 10:30, pretty much every night. And yet, the last three weeks I don't think I've gone to bed before midnight once. I'm adjusting, slowly, with the help of excessive amounts of caffeine. But I forgot how draining losing a half hour or hour or two hours of sleep is, especially when it happens every day for a month. Plus, writing full time plus is not exciting. I mean, if it were just normal hours, or if I got to do other things intermixed throughout the day, it would be fine and I would even like it,, I think. But right now I spend 12 hours a day sitting in my little chair. Maybe I mix it up and spend six hours in the chair and six in a coffee shop. But it's the same, all day, and it is mind-numbingly dull. Add that to a bipolar diet of crappy "writing food" (yes I think I will eat this bag of doritos for today) mixed with anxious and distracted lack of significant meals it makes for a jittery distracted tired weepy girl.

I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel though. For better or worse, this will be out of my hands by Thursday. I will have done my part. I will of course need to defend, but I'm a pretty good speaker, I know my field well, and I'm excellent at thinking on my feet/BS. I'm not terribly worried about that part. And the nice thing is, that once done I will never, ever have to do this again. I will be done with getting a PhD, forever.

Still, I have about a week to go, and I have to give it my all the whole time. It's twelve thirty, and I have one last section to finish before bed.

Pear soup!

I am (obviously) on a soup kick lately. No lamenting lack of pictures for this one, because it is nothing exceptional looking...it is, however exceptional tasting. I was inspired by a soup I had as an amuse-bouche at a restaurant near my parent's house when I was home in April. They bring out a little shot glass full of soup and a little spoon, and it wasn't nearly enough. I tried to recreate it from memory-not entirely the same, but still good enough to share.

Parsnip-Pear Soup
1 medium sweet onion, peeled and quartered
2 large shallots, peeled and halved
3 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
2 lbs parsnips, peeled and cut into chunks
4 medium ripe pears, peeled and cut into chunks
~4 cups vegetable stock* (chicken is fine if you want a richer soup)
1 small spring rosemary
1/4-1/2 cup whole milk or heavy cream
olive oil
salt and pepper
1/4 tsp cardamom
fresh nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375 F. Toss Onion, shallots, garlic, and parsnips in olive oil to coat and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Spread on a cookie sheet and roast for 35-40 minutes, until vegetables are soft and browned. Remove from oven, and let cool enough to handle. Peel garlic, and chop other vegetables into small pieces. Place vegetables in a pot with chopped pears, and cover with broth. Add rosemary sprig and bring to a boil. Turn down heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes, until pears and parsnips are very tender. Remove rosemary,and puree soup with an immersion mixer or in batches in a blender. Add more veggie stock if neccesary to thin soup to desired consistency. Stir in milk or cream and cardamom. add fresh-grated nutmeg to taste.


* Don't buy vegetable stock from the store! It is so easy to make on your own, and makes a HUGE difference in the taste of soups-much more so than canned vs homemade chicken or beef stock. Just save all your vegetable leftovers-carrot peels, the tops and leaves of celery, leftover onion and garlic, broccoli stalks, outside leaves of brussels sprouts, etc-pretty much everything except tomatoes-in a gallon ziploc bag in the freezer. When it is full, toss it in a big pot, add an onion cut into quarters, maybe some shallots or leeks, and a couple cloves of garlic. cover with water, shake in a bunch of salt and ground pepper, add 3-4 bay leaves, a couple sprigs of rosemary, several shakes of dried thyme and tarragon. Bring it to a boil, cover, and simmer for a few hours. Add salt and pepper to taste, let it cool, strain, and you have fresh homemade veggie stock! Use right away or freeze.

I wish I had a better camera

So I could take pictures of this delicious and beautiful soup! I followed the recipe pretty closely (for once), adding an extra jalepeno, using regular soy sauce and a splash of fish sauce instead of tamari, an extra teaspoon of curry paste and an extra sprinkle of garam masala. It's super tasty, a little sweet from the squash, creamy from the coconut milk, and has lip-tingling spice offset by cilantro-mint pesto.

It's also the prettiest shade of light orange, with little beads of red from the curry paste and a dark green swirl of pesto. If I only had a camera other than my 3 MP piece of crap from 2003, I would share with the internet. For graduation I am buying myself a new camera.
For tonight, I am eating my soup!

sisters discuss drugs and science writing

me: I am such a bad writer

Elizabeth: I'm sorry

Elizabeth: maybe you should take some cocaine*.
it helped lewis carroll

me: I'd probably be a better writer if I had a smidge of LSD
"yes the third chapter of my thesis is narrarated by a talking mushroom WHAT OF IT?"

Elizabeth: hahahaha
that would be so happy
there is not nearly enough batshit crazy imagery in science writing
also, use cocaine when you meet with XL to discuss this.
science writing is the coolest



* she means LSD. We come from a small town and are also the only two children to ever be influenced enough by the DARE program to be completely terrified and ignorant of drugs well into our twenties. I am a completely lame person. My friends and I went to a concert (Matchbox20 and Train, rock and roll!) when we were seventeen and vaguely considered trying to find some alcohol, decided we had no idea how to do that(note to my teenaged self: all you need to do to get get alcohol when you are a busty seventeen year old at a concert is walk your jailbait self to the nearest pack of college-aged guys where you will promptly be offered alcohol), responsibly remembered that we had to drive home (we carpooled. only one person had to drive home) and split a giant cup of diet pepsi. lame, I tell you.

I like:

1. This list, a crowd-sourced compendium of the best of magazine writing. I think magazine pieces are the perfect form for non-fiction for me. I really like learning new things, but rarely have the patience to sit through a whole book of facts.

2. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I am two years behind the cool kids on this one, but the YYYs have really grown o me. They struck me as a little weird at first (kinda shouty, they're headlined by a tiny korean girl who looks like Johnny Weir and styles herself like Michael Jackson), but I am loving their music the more I listen to it.


3. Blood Bank by Bon Iver. I'm in awe of this guy's ability to write lyrics-they're so strange and sweet and evocative.


4. fresh sweet cherries, candied in whiskey and a little vanilla and a dash of cardamom, about to go over ice cream while I watch mad men:)

Accomplishment a lot.

1. Yesterday I vomited in three different airports.*
2.  Today I tripped over my own feet, resulting in a fist sized scrape on my knee, a tear on the hem of my dress, lilttle pieces of gravel i my palms, and most impressively, a 4-inch streak of bruises and petichiae ON MY NECK. It looks like a giant hickey. Fail.





*also got offered an awesome job!

Speaking of betty draper

I mad-menned myself!

I always think of myself as Joan, but that is mostly because of my ultracurviness.  When I think about it, I am ambitious, kindof insecure, a little obnoxious, tragically uncool, and I really want to be Joan. yep, I am  Peggy Olsen.

probably should both sleep and eat more

I feel like betty draper on quaaludes today. It is so hot, and I am so tired and listless.  I just want to lay on my fainting couch/futon and stare wistfully through the window and watch the rain start.

weather.com now informs me that there will be no rain. So.

Book club update:

Today we decided that, at least according to Milton in Paradise Lost, God is a real douchebag

Having issues with rage today

Hmmm

A month went by and no blogging.  Naturally, I am spurred back to writing by the opportunity to change the way the old blog looks rather than any specific desire to express myself.  At any rate, a hail of bullets...

• My wistful last Alabama spring has melted into my miserable last alabama summer. I have spent considerable time lying on my floor in front of the air conditioner and lamenting ever moving to this terrible land. I will remember these days and bring them to mind come december when I start getting sad about leaving. 
• For Sister Book Club we are currently reading Paradise Lost. It is difficult. Good, and we have a lot of really good discussions about it, but hard. 
• I have not cooked anything remotely interesting in a month. I don't know if I've turned the stove on in a month. It is summer, who needs to eat when you can sustain yourself off whining about the heat. 
• My future seems to be shaping up-I'm almost certain to defend in October. After that, I'll finish up some stuff in the lab and then head off to a postdoc, most likely in either rhode island or dallas. Very different places. Maybe more thoughts on that later. 

Sister is funny

Elizabeth: Hey, guess the top two ways that I am more Minnesotan today?

me: hmmm

i give up

Elizabeth: 1.

I got my driver's license today

2.

It is too too terribly hot I just want to die from the hotness.

me: haahahahahahah

how hot?

Elizabeth: 92.

in MAY!

I want to go find the old church ladies in Hibbing

that are all, "Gosh gee, Al Gore can come to minnesota if he thinks the world is warming up!"

and Say, "Dammit! This is what happens when you fuck with Al Gore!"

More Polish Poets

Another Favorite, by Adam Zagajewski.

Little Waltz
The days are so vivid, so bright
that even the slim, sparse palms
are covered in the white dust of neglect.
Serpents in the vineyards slither softly,
but the evening sea grows dark and,
suspended overhead like punctuation
in the highest script, the seagulls barely stir.
A drop of wine’s inscribed upon your lips.
The limestone hills slowly melt
on the horizon and a star appears.
At night on the square an orchestra of sailors
dressed in spotless white
plays a little waltz by Shostakovich; small children
cry as if they’d guessed
what the merry music’s really saying.
We’ve been locked in the world’s box,
love sets us free, time kills us.


In my head, when I think of this poem, I always invert the last line to be "Time kills us, love sets us free". Like that, it is hopeful but a little trite. When I read it from a book I'm always a little suprised at the beautiful, abrupt bleakness of the last sentence, and urgentness it conveys.

Oh My! Pasta printemps!

Three posts in three days! My word!

Anyways, I made some AWESOME pasta that I wanted to tell The Internet about. I get really fussy about eating once it hits, oh, 75 degrees outside. My kitchen, in addition to being dysunctionally organized, is also unbearably poorly ventilated so I rarely cook after May or so. I took advantage of a storm-cooled evening to make one last delicious hot meal before summer rolls in and I start to subsist on fruit, fruit smoothies, raw veggies, cheese, and yogurt. (SIDE NOTE: one would think that summer would be an excellent time for weight loss. It is not. I am mystified by this. I think the answer is that I move much, much less plus I don't have the massive calorie loss from keeping myself warm in a drafty house that I am too stubborn to turn the heat on in all winter)

SO. Here is the springtime pasta recipe. I was inspired by seeing a few different recipes mixing goat cheese and asparagus, plus I've been wanting to try the cooking regular pasta like risotto thing for a while. I am a little unsure on the timing of when to add the asparagus-I added it before I added the pasta, and that was a mistake. Next time I will probably add it about halfway through cooking the pasta, which is what I wrote here.

Spring pasta
You will need:
3 small/2 medium shallots or 1 small onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, smashed and minced
About 1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes (dried, not the ones packed in oil), sliced into thin strips
chopped rosemary (about 1 sprig)
1 bunch asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-2 inch pieces
1/2 pound dried gemelli or farfalle or some other shaped pasta
Red pepper flakes (a pinch! a little goes a long way here)
1-2 cups light white wine (I used a cheap riesling that had been in my fridge for...a while. better wine=better taste, but crappy wine still=pretty awesome taste)
~6 oz. Goat Cheese

1. Heat 2-3 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil in a large skillet over med-high heat. Add shallots or onions and cook for a few minutes, until soft and translucent. Add garlic and cook 1-2 minutes until soft. Add tomatoes and rosemary, and turn the heat down to med. Cook 3-5 minutes until everything is soft and mushy
2. Meanwhile, heat wine and an equal measure of water* in a small saucepan over medium heat. It doesn't need to boil, just get warm. And if it doesn't get warm, it's not the end of the world
3. Once wine mixture is warm, add about 1 cup of it to the skillet, and add a pinch of red pepper flakes if desired** and then add pasta. Return to a simmer, stirring frequently
4. When liquid is almost entirely absorbed, add another 1 cup of warmed wine mixture and continue stirring. Add asparagus pieces.
5. Continue replenishing cooking liquid 1/2-1 cup at a time and stirring frequently until pasta is tender. Turn off heat and let sit for a few minutes to absorb residual liquid
6. Add goat cheese, toss to mix, and enjoy!

* If you are fancy, you will use chicken or vegetable stock in this style of cooking pasta. HOWEVER, I did not have stock on hand (NOT FANCY), and I actually think it would have added too much richness to the dish.
** be sparing with the pepper-it's going to infuse into the cooking liquid and thus into the pasta and veggies, which means it will pack much more punch.

Book Club gone awry

So my sister and I, in our book club, are currently reading The Aeneid. We generally like it, but were discussing tonight how we wish more time was spent on Dido and Aeneas doomed love and how someone should really write a novel further exploring the story. We started imagining how we would write it. Set in modern times, Dido (in this version we call her by her greek name Elissa) is now a plucky but dim governor of a frontier state, her evil brother is the leader of the local militia, Aeneas is a indecisive terrorist who inexplicably brings his band of comrades to said state, her stupid sister Anna is now her special needs sister Anna. The final scene is in a long empty hall filled with benches, where Elissa (having killed herself after Aeneas left for a promised haven in canada) refuses to accept Aeneas's (departing somewhat from virgil's version, in our masterpiece, aeneas returns to terrorism and blows up himself and the statehouse when he returns from canada only to find Elissa has died) post mortem apologies. She sits several benches in front of him and cries silently while he gives a quite moving speech, and then turns towards the shadow of her ex husband (killed by her evil brother in a hunting "accident") without ever looking back at Aeneas. A tear jerker.



Our final judgement:
Sister: maybe we should write a screenplay
and not the great american novel.
or, let's be real.
The Great America novel will be a Screenplay.
about Sarah Palin.



Needless to say, we did not have any serious discussions about the devil, god, or ancient literature during this week's meeting.

Two Songs I've been loving

Bon Iver. This is a "spontaneous" a capella version of "for emma", but I like the studio version too, as well as "Skinny Love"




La Roux. She's up-and-coming, and will inevitably be compared to Lady Gaga because she's a bit on the weird side. Nowhere close in terms of over-the-top performance, but it's a fun, catchy song.

On Angels

One of my favorites, by Czeslaw Milosz:

All was taken away from you: white dresses,
wings, even existence.
Yet I believe in you,
messengers.

There, where the world is turned inside out,
a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts,
you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seams.

Short is your stay here:
now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear,
in a melody repeated by a bird,
or in the smell of apples at close of day
when the light makes the orchards magic.

They say somebody has invented you
but to me this does not sound convincing
for the humans invented themselves as well.

The voice — no doubt it is a valid proof,
as it can belong only to radiant creatures,
weightless and winged (after all, why not?),
girdled with the lightening.

I have heard that voice many a time when asleep
and, what is strange, I understood more or less
an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:

day draw near
another one
do what you can.

As I have mentioned, I am not terribly faithful, certainly not very religious. That said, I appreciate Milosz's ability to address questions of faith in an intellectual voice, to admit that it requires a suspension of thought to truly believe in the divine or at least the mysterious. I like his ability to tackle questions of faith and doubt, guilt and redemption, in such a smart and beautiful way

return of the book monster

I am, at heart, a total bookworm. When I was a kid I would spend all of my free time reading. Also so not-technically-free-time, I kept a book open in my desk at school, and when I finished my work/declined to pay attention to what was being taught, I read. Monday was library and piano lesson day, and my mom limited me to seven books a week (maybe ten in the summer), at least until I was 12 or 13 and became less agreeable to limits. I would get home from town monday night and anxiously rifle through my pile of new adventures, trying to figure out the perfect one to start with. Once I picked a book, I would devour it. I would be inseparable from it until it was done-I would carry the book with me to the breakfast table (where I was allowed to read), on the bus to school, during school as I could sneak time to read it, on the bus home, curled up in the recliner until dinner (where I was not allowed to read). At night I was technically allowed 15 minutes after bedtime to read (measured by egg timer), but I usually needed to be told to turn the light out more than once. If my mom wanted to punish me, she did so by taking minutes off of my reading-before-bed time. I usually ran out of books by thursday, which led to a lot of boring weekends and an early exposure to the yellowed classics one my parents bookshelves (as well as an earlier-than-ideal exposure to Michael Crichton's Disclosure). I was a book monster. I grew out of it, of course, as I got older and school got harder and it became harder and harder to find books that engaged my mind. More difficult still when I went to college and focused on science instead of literature and had less and less time for curling up to read a book cover-to-cover. Once I went to grad school, forget it. I barely get my chapter or two or literature read for P. Sister book club. Still, occasionally something would pull me in and when I turn the last page I realize that it is 3 AM and there was no egg timer to remind me it was time to put the book down and go to sleep.

It has been a while since anything grabbed my attention, and I missed it-both reading a book for the unadulterated thrill of figuring out what happens next, and the experience of devouring a book-struggling to keep your eyes open and unable to put it down. This weekend, though, I found one! A few friends recommended The Hunger Games, and I picked it and its sequel up at the bookstore Sunday night. That was less than 48 hours ago, and I finished them both. Now, to be fair, they are technically books for teenagers and not the most rigorous reading. But SO GOOD. So, so, so, so good. Great characters; engaging story; smooth, elegant, evocative writing. The worst part: They are a trilogy, and book#3 doesn't come out until August! I will, theoretically, be preparing to defend my dissertation in August. I think I'll be able to spare a few evenings for ravenously devouring a book:)

Too Fast

The weekend has flown by. I worked in the lab allllll day saturday, followed by dinner with a friend and her family. Today was lab again (where I learned my saturday experiment did not turn out the way it should have, boo), shopping for spring clothes, groceries, weekly phone call with dad, scraping together dinner, and now it is 9:30 on sunday night. Of course the worst part of the hurried weekend was that I did not bake at all. No cakes, no bread, no muffins, no cookies. Whatever will I eat for breakfast all week?

The tulips I was so excited about on friday have already started to droop. I love spring here, it is the only time I find this city remotely appealing in and of itself. There are so many flowering trees, painted more shades of pale pink and green than I knew were possible. When the wind blows, the petals swirl down to the ground like snow (real snow, not Alabama snow). They're already starting to fade and drop. I forgot until tonight that this is probably my last spring here, and it's come and gone so fast.

A few random things

It has been a while, once again. Not much going on, and at the same time crazy busy and stressed. At any rate, a bullet point update. More in depth thoughts later.

• My little sister came to visit a few weeks ago. We had a grand time, despite it being horrifically rainy the whole time. Probably the best day was when we got rained on while trying to hike at one park, discovered the trail was flooded, went to another park to eat a picnic and got rained on again. We ended up eating lunch in my car and then heading back to my apartment. We wanted to watch movies, but also to be warm in bed so we folded out the futon and curled up under all the blankets I owned for the remainder of the afternoon and watched dMad Men, Up, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. There were other highlights of the weekend as well-an epic shopping trip, roasted pork tenderloin with apples, regaling my grad school friends with tales of the insane games we played as kids at a thai house lunch, homemade pizza and popcorn, dinner with some of our good college friends and meeting their ridiculously adorable puppies, honey glazed pear upside down cake, a brief road trip to Atlanta and the Coke Museum and then she flew away. A short, sweet visit.
• Speaking of my sister, the P. Sister Book Club finished our "Dysfunctional Families" reading list and has moved on to a study of the "Devil and God".
• I am inching (so slowly!) closer and closer to graduation. My second paper, on a project that has been incredibly draining in terms of effort and the ridiculous politics among various people involved, was accepted for publication a few weeks ago. I found out today that a review I wrote in December was also accepted. woot!
• I am trying my hand at gardening once again this year. I always have high hopes of growing a beautiful patio garden full of flowers and herbs and vegetables, and I always fail miserably. I planted tulips and hyacinths, and so far so good! All are blooming and lovely. Of course, the constant rain means that their chances of dying because I forget to water them for two weeks is very low.
• 
  

Ash Wednesday, a few weeks later

Because I do not hope to turn
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn again
TS Eliot, Ash Wednesday

The one day of the year that I go to church without fail is Ash Wednesday. My attachment to religion comes and goes-at times I find a grasping semblance of the faith of my younger years, occasionally I find myself in fervent disbelief, mostly I settle for not thinking very hard about it and following the basics of Jesus's life: love everyone, as hard as you can, even your enemies, especially those who need it. I rarely go to church anymore-in part due to being a busy graduate student, in part because of lack of interest. I find rituals to be important, and am glad I grew up in the church (this is helped by the fact that it was a boring midwestern lutheran church-not a holy roller praise Jesus Jesuscamp church). But I haven't felt much behind them in a while, and so I've drifted away.

As a kid, I hated Ash Wednesday. I liked very little about church, and that was by far my least favorite service. I hated the darkness, the somberness, the quiet admonition to remember that we dust. I had an allergic reaction to whatever ashes they used and would be left with a bright red smudged cross on my head. Somewhere along the line of growing up, though, I got attached to the service. Every year, I go and get a cross of ashes on my forehead, a celebration and reminder of mortality. Everyone dies. Maybe we live again, in some way. Probably we don't. On any given day I have serious doubts about the existence of God or a higher power, but I have faith in the carbon cycle. From dust we are made, to dust we shall return. That gives me some semblance of comfort, something true, something solid.

Dude, no.

My downstairs neighbor is a strange young man. He doesn't appear to have a "job" per se, but his occupation consists of smoking pot and taking pills. And playing music, really, really, really loud. Me pounding on his door and telling him to turn it the fuck down is pretty much a daily occurence. It gets old, but it is an outlet for my never ending rage. His music choices amuse and annoy me-a lot of rap, a lot of heavy metal I don't recognize, once he played AC/DC's back in black six times in a row.
Today, the music was slower and I listened carefully and could make out the words to...You oughtta Know. That's right, dude was playing Jagged Little Pill, by Alanis.

So this happened...

today's accomplishment: being simultaneously hit on and evangelized by a random creeper decked out in Roll Tide Gear in the elevator.
Creeper: where did you get such a pretty smile you sweet little thing?
Me: um...what?***
Creeper:I bet you know where you got it...*wink*
Me: excuse me?
Creeper: It's from upstairs. Way upstairs. Jesus Christ will make you smile every day for the rest of your life. You just remember that. *another wink*



I cannot wait to move to not-alabama.


***I was proud of myself for restraining my inner feminist from explaining that I was not really even smiling, not that pretty, really not sweet, 9/10s of a doctor, not little, and a woman not a thing.

Today...

...Was freaking gorgeous. This northern ice princess will never get used to sitting outside in February without being bundled up nice and cozy. Really, I will never get used to willingly going outside in February.

In honor of our (temporary) spring, I made a delicious salad...cucumbers, lettuce, pistachios, cherry-balsamic glazed chicken, and blue cheese. I got lots of veggies at the grocery store this week, my goal is to improve this week's diet over last week's by eating fewer meals consisting entirely of things sold by girl scouts.

Unrelated, but on teevee, some fresh faced american kids are ice-dancing a honky-tonk routine to the Dixie Chicks. I like ice skating, I like america, and I like the Dixie Chicks, but seriously, WTF kind of sport is this?

DILEMNA

1. I really like to bake
2. I cook and bake a lot when I am stressed. Chopping, kneading, and mixing are calming
3. I have been a little more tightly wound than normal lately.
4. I want to make this this weekend
5. Most of my coworkers do not like sweets
6. THEREFORE, if I make this carmelized butter cake, I will probably eat it all, for breakfast, over the course of <5 days.
7. This is, theoretically bad.
8. But I am going to do it anyways.

UGH

I left work today at 5:30-typical for a friday. Got home, cleaned some stuff up, got settled in, logged onto the computer around 6:15...FOUR emails from my boss. Two titled "urgent request".

None being addressed until tomorrow.

Life in List Form

1. I have not been good about writing on the blog. I am sure I have left my zero readers terribly disappointed. But here is a brief update, in blurbs

2. In good news, I finally got my mentor to settle on a graduation goal more specific than "one year from today". And the goal is...August! Eight little months away.

3. Holy shit I have a lot to do.

4. Good reads lately: I got SO MANY books for christmas. It was awesome. My latest reads have been Dreaming in Cuban and God of Small Things for sister book club. I loved Dreaming in Cuban, it was excellent. So exquisitely written, such eloquent descriptions of madness and sadness and exile and reunion. One of my favorites ever. God of Small things I read before, but I'm liking it a little more this time. I think when I read it for class in college I (naturally) skipped ahead to the end and was so weirded out by the creepy ending that I couldn't really get anything out of the rest of the book. This time, I'm trying to ignore the ending I know is coming and appreciate the book as it unfolds, and I'm doing a lot better. Roy's language is at times annoying, but mostly it is lovely. I'm working my way through a collection of short stories about Pakistan called In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. It's good, but depressing. None of the stories have happy endings. I can only read one or two at a time

5. I am trying to not bake as much as I used to, mostly because it is not healthy for me to eat the leftovers for breakfast for a week every time i get it into my head to make a cake. I share with neighbors and coworkers and friends, but I can never get rid of all of it, and I end up eating (really delicious) junk. That said, my efforts at resisting have not been terribly successful. It's the stress. Some people stress-eat, I stress bake. I made a delicious ricotta pound cake this weekend and am going to make this for my birthday next month, if I can wait that long.

A river so dirty it caught on fire twice

Cleveland, Ohio, is not a town with a reputation for being an exciting or enlightened place. There's this for starters, and also this. BUT one thing that Cleveland does have, that my current home does not, is an excellent art museum. My family trekked up to the big city to see an exhibit on Paul Gauguin and the Volpini exhibition while I was home over the holidays. I don't think anyone else in the family found it terribly interesting, but I thought it was cool. The exhibit focused on Gauguin's repeated use of figures and motifs throughout his life's work. One of my favorites was this one, a enigmatic red-headed woman playing, bathing, or drowning in green waves. The colors in this one, as in much of Gauguin's work, are gorgeous (Of course I like them, I am the queen of jeweltones): Ondine

The exhibit also featured some of Gauguin's contemporaries. I particularly liked this piece by Louis Anquetin. Similar to Van Gogh's Night Cafe, but a little more raw. I love how everything is dark and muted except the glare of the one window. I like that the colors are unbalanced, and it pulls you in to looking closer.
Avenue de Clichy




We didn't get to see much beyond the Gauguin exhibit due to time constraints. I could have stayed for hours though. In another life I would have loved studying art history. When I settle down for real in this one, it will definitely be in a place with an art museum worthy of visiting more than once.

Loss

How to resist nothingness? What power
Preserves what once was, if memory does not last?
For I remember little. I remember so very little
Do I believe in the Resurrection of the Flesh?
Not of this ash.
I call, I beseech: elements, dissolve yourselves!
Rise into the other, let it come, kingdom!
Beyond the earthly fire compose yourselves anew!
Czeslaw Milosz

I am reeling a bit the past few days. Last thursday, I found out through the facebook grapevine that a young girl that I babysat as a teenager died in a car accident. V was 16, almost 17. I hadn't seen her in years, since she was 4 or 5. Looking through the articles about her, there was an overwhelming rush of information. The funny, charming, bouncy little girl I had chased around her backyard had grown into a lovely, lively, caring and talented young woman, and then just as suddenly had died in a moment of carelessness. I don't understand why, but this has left me unbearably sad. I didn't know V well anymore, I adore her family but hadn't been in touch with them in a while. But still, I can't focus, I spend my lunch flipping through facebook pictures of a ghost girl, I spend nights tossing and turning and trying to reason out some sort of comfort and end up crying.

I am trying to find some way to understand this, and other losses. Christmas always has an unspoken sadness, as my dad's small family gathers and silently notes my grandmother and uncle, who died well before their time. I try to think of the possibility of resurrection, to reach back into my christian roots, but that is not much comfort. Maybe its an immature inability to delay reward, but the thought of an ambiguous eternal heaven does not make up for the fact that the grandmother who I so resemble in temperment and looks was gone before I could speak. I'm told often that my uncle the engineer would love talking about my research, would be a good person to ask about electronic questions, but in this life I will never know. I can't compare eternity with the present. I only know that in the here and now, what I want is more time with them, what I want is all the time in the world, in this wonderful life.
I hope that V's parents are finding some comfort, however small, in the thought of their daughter in heavenly peace, at the possibility of reunion someday. I hope and pray against all reason that some sort of grace is real, that we will not be parted forever from those we love. But I ache because for me-and I fear for them-at this time, it is not enough. It seems that throughout life you accumulate loss after loss. They add up, year after year. It seems so unfair that a 16 year old is one of them. That her parents have to bury their child. That her friends have to navigate sixteen, an awful and exhilarting time, with one more burden and one less shoulder to cry on. I think about everything I've experienced and learned and done since I was sixteen, about how even though there are awful and terrible times, on the balance life is rich and sweet. What breaks my heart is that V had such a short time to take it all in.

Happy New Year!

Christmas and the holidays have come and gone. I made an uneventful and wonderful trip to Ohio for Christmas. Got to see family and snow, ate way too much. It was a literary and culinary christmas for me, as my presents were almost all books or cooking gear. Wouldn't have it any other way. I got to see some old friends I hadn't seen in a while, which was wonderful.
Now I'm back in my southern home, which is way colder than I would prefer. A nasty sinus infection kept me from doing much celebrating for the new year, but I enjoyed taking nyqil and falling asleep by 10

2010 is an interesting year, or I hope it will be. Barring disaster, I should graduate this year, and I will probably be leaving birmingham if not by the end of the year, then early in 2011. And so instead of feeling the eager newness of the year, it feels like a slow unraveling, the beginning of an ending. It is strange to look at the next twelve months knowing the changes that will occur, and seeing how much I have to do to make sure that end up in the best possible position. They should be good changes, but it's still a little overwhelming. And as eager as I am to leave Birmingham, it is still the place I have called home for the past five years. I'll be leaving behind friends and memories, and that is bittersweet.
So here's to a new year-may it be an adventure:)