Quodlibets

"And now you fuckin' wench,

"And now you fuckin' wench, you're just like, writing about love and stuff, and what happened to your politics and are you just gonna sell out?" "And it's like, hey man, I just got distracted...."

That's from Living in Clip, Ani's first live album. It's imperfect because I couldn't find the quote on my iPod, the album is in my car, and I couldn't find the text of it on the internet. This is my memory of it. The point was, some of the people on the Righteous Babe staff were concerned because the music had seemed to get less political over time, (though I'm not sure I agree) and more concerned with personal things.

Aha! My blog, too, has strayed far from the political. It's not that I don't think about these things constantly, and it's not as if I've stopped reading about all these things. I'm just exhausted from thinking about it all. Yes, I believe things will get worse before they will get better, but YES, I believe they will get better. Do I think that the Bush administration can stop the march of progress? Not really. Whether bigots want to admit it or not, at some point, there will be gay marriage. It's institutionalized discrimination and it will be stopped.

I myself am paralyzed by inaction. I want to change the world (as does my friend C), but we're just not sure where to start. I can't figure out what I can do to change the world. I don't shop at Walmart, and I try really hard not to patronize companies that are evil. But that's all relative, because there are very few corporations that are simply good. Lately, I just can't bring myself to care. I was angry after the election, but now I just feel apathetic. The good liberal in me is yelling, screaming at me, but I'm paralyzed. Unable to think beyond how I'm going to finish all the things that I have to do.
So if the blog seems light on politics, understand that I'm probably outraged at the newest despicable thing that the Bushies have done, and that I wish it was different. But I'm too tired to speak intelligently about this stuff, at least right now.

S and I went to

S and I went to the zoo tonight, for the "Holiday Lights" evening. It was okay, I suppose, in a "my nose is frozen and the animals are asleep" kind of a way. The highlight was DEFINTELY the baby gorilla, no doubt about it. Two months old, and still infantile in a human sort of way. Cute beyond belief. I also really wanted to see the baby African crested porcupines, but all the porcupines (six other bigger ones) were sleeping in a heap, and in the mess of quills, the babies were not visable. Otherwise, the only other highlight was that all the big cats were awake. I've never seen a male lion actually walk around his enclosure. Actually, the tiger was still sleeping, but the leopards, the jaguars and the carcuals were all prowling around. S has some nice pictures of them, but he's too busy reading about Pearl Jam to put them on his computer right now; I can't post them if he doesn't e-mail them to me.

Speaking of S, though, I thought I'd report on his amazing progress in the area of Asian food. S is up to six and half Asian dishes that he'll not only eat, but express longing for. I had to literally pull him away from the sesame chicken last night. So, now that he likes one Chinese dish, can another be far behind? Might we actually get to go out to Chinese restaurants? This is too exciting to even think about. Anyway, here's the list of Asian foods that S will eat:
-naan, samosas, and paneer butter masala (Indian)
-yakitori (Japanese)
-sesame chicken (Chinese)
-fried tofu and pad thai, except that he doesn't like rice noodles, hence the one half (Thai)

Before he started dating me, it is safe to say that S would never go near any Asian restaurant. I never held out any hope, being that he was STRONGLY against all of the above cuisines for a long, long time. I generally would order Chinese, and he would stick to pizza. I went out to Indian, Thai, and Japanese with friends, and left S at home to eat pizza or pasta. However, at some point, and I'm not sure if it's because I dragged him, or because he wanted to go hang out with the mutual friends, S came with to the Indian restaurant. In our old town, I also sometimes got Japanese when I had a cold, because supposedly, miso soup is good for that. So at some point S took a bite of my yakitori, and liked it, and then in London, I dragged him to Wagamama, a noodle joint, and he LOOOVED the yakitori. And as for the sesame chicken, credit has to go to his parents, who chose Chinese the other night. Now, S is obsessed with sesame chicken, and that's okay with me. I'm going to continue to feed him Asian food, in the hope that we can expand his menu exponentially.

My second sewing project!

My second sewing project! Originally uploaded by manogirl.

This is the project I've just finished; I'm giving it to S's mom for Christmas. It was very complicated, for a second project. It's nice not having any sewing that I *have* to finish; I'm sure that I'll start my Wright project at some point, to help me relax. It's always relaxing at the beginning, and then it gets tense when I'm trying to finish. S and I took this to get framed today, and I'm very happy with the mat and frame that we chose. I just hope Mrs. S likes it as much as I hope she will!

***Update: My sis wanted to know which mat we chose, and I don't know why I didn't include this in the post, but okay. The mat is black, with red fill (which means that the inside edge of the mat is red). The frame is also black. We looked at many other mat options, including white, red and black, but this just looked the best. It lets the project speak for itself.

To someone.

To someone.

If there's one thing that

If there's one thing that sucks about working for the department, it's knowing all the stuff I'm going to be doing next quarter. I saw two of the syllabi from the classes today, and it's not pretty. In fact, I have in my posession a letter that assigns me homework. That's right, the class starts on January 3rd, and there is homework due IN CLASS that day. That means that on my hard-earned and desperately needed Christmas break, I will be doing? HOMEWORK. I'm so pissed. I really needed three weeks to not worry; I needed time to de-stress and not feel like every moment I'm not doing homework I'm somehow cheating. God, this sucks. I hate COD more every single day I have to deal with it.

I think part of the reason I'm so unhappy is because of COD. Even though everyone else seems to think this is a positive step for me, it's actually like purgatory. One of my co-workers complimented a recent certificate recipient by saying, "And she was actually doing Masters quality work in my class." There is nothing in the world that depresses me so much as that statement. I am doing Masters quality work; I could be doing Masters work, but instead I'm wasting my time with a bunch of women who couldn't tell you the difference between a footnote and an endnote. And work! I'm TOO fucking competent to be working in a place where they expect folding 26 letters and putting them in envelopes to take 2 hours. Everyone keeps saying, "Oh, there is so much for you to do" but there's not. I'm about *this* close to bringing reading or sewing or Christmas cards to work and doing that. I mean, the other day, I read the ENTIRE Jennifer Crusie website because there was nothing to do. I'm frustrated, and bored. I'm not being challenged. Ever. No wonder I'm depressed.

When I was a junior

When I was a junior in college, for my end of semester project, a classmate and I made a medieval meal. I have NO idea where we found the recipes, but we made disgusting veal, disgusting cauliflower, disgusting mulled wine, so-so apple tarts, and delicious beer bread. It was quite an undertaking, but I remember it being fun in a hard-work kind of a way. And the beer break tasted quite yummy.

Anyway, right now in my remaining class of the quarter (yay for being done with the stupidest class ever!) I have to do a "webliography" on something academically oriented. I was having a really hard time thinking of a topic that I'd like to look up info on, and for some reason I remembered the medieval meal, and decided medieval cooking was a PERFECT topic. I was wrong. I mean, I'm finding a lot of really interesting sites, but I don't know how reliable they are, and so they're hard to put on a webliography. However, now I think I want to attempt the beer bread again.

But here's the weirdest thing: there's a group of people in the world who belong to this society, called the Society of Creative Anachronism (don't quote me on that, but that sounds right), and all they do is recreate medieval society. Down to the button. They're reorganized the world, created a government, renamed themselves, and apparently are the definitive source on redaction of medieval recipes. It gets distracting to keep going to websites owned by people named: Skeggi Hrafensfuri, Taisiia of Ma Elring, Lady Colleen inghean Phattraic, or Lord Godwin fitzGilbert de Strigol. Their real names are things like: James Wilson, Kate Jones or Richard Doe. I mean, come on. It's just a little strange. There's royalty, for god's sake. And they wear crowns at jousts and feasts and parties. It's soooo odd. I've been knee-deep in medieval society for two days and I'm just about ready to be done, but I still need to dig up three more medieval food sites. I'm so done with homework. You know, until January.

I think I might be

I think I might be a polytheist. I'm not a Christian, but I pray a lot. My problem with that is, who am I praying to? For a long time I've avoided thinking about that, knowing that praying was somehow comforting to me, and that part of the reason I pray is because I like to feel like I need to. But I've never thought I was praying to God. I rarely speak to 'a' person/being. More like, I direct some thoughts up into space and that makes me feel better.
Recently, however, it occurred to me that perhaps there was a god. Or there were Gods. Can so many religions be wrong? Maybe they're all right. See, I think I envision some sort of celestial city, where Allah and Buddha and God and Ganesh and the Shinto Gods and the Tribal Gods and so on and so forth exist in perfect harmony. It's like, God City. And on every corner is a phone booth, and when someone prays (me, for instance), whichever god is nearest and willing picks up the phone and listens. This way, I figure, it's less like someone is running your life (because I do believe in free will) and more like maybe your grandma's on the phone, and when you mention that you'd really like a new pair of shoes she decides she likes you and gives them to you. Or for instance, when you pray really hard about grad school but don't get in, it's like it's your crazy mean great aunt who'd deny you anything because she doesn't like you. Maybe some gods answer your prayers, and some gods don't. Depends on who picks up the phone.
So S and I were driving home tonight and I mentioned this, and told him that I really like the Hindu concept of God more than the Christian one (not that I want to be a Hindu, or even that I understand it so well), and that if I had to choose one religion to study more, it would be Hinduism. I really like the way Gods are represented in the Hindu religion. Ganesh is an elephant, for instance. And, Ganesh is the Deity of Knowledge. I learned that tonight. I like Ganesh. I just am fascinated with the images and the idea of it. Don't be surprised if Ganesh(a) art pops up in our apartment. I want an elephant god, not a white, blonde, blue-eyed god.

Fiddler on the roof. Ah,

Fiddler on the roof. Ah, the nostalgia. I still know all the songs from my freshman year performance in the musical, and though I really don't so much care for the actual movie, I do love the music. You can ask S what I've been doing this morning, and this is the answer you'll get: dancing around the apartment singing songs from the musical. Now, this included an approximated performance of the Tevye part from "If I Were a Rich Man". I'm pretty sure I looked stupider than hell. But boy do I like the singing. In the shower, I was singing Beatles tunes. Mostly "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" but also "I Feel Fine" and "Yes it's True". You put on a Beatles song, and I'm physically compelled to sing along. I can't not. It's a very sad disease. I also am compelled to sing along to all the songs from "Oklahoma" (I was in that too) and "The Sound of Music". I can even hardly get through "West Side Story" and "The King and I" without singing all the songs. In high school, see, I think I went through a phase where all I wanted to listen to was musicals. To this day, the music from "The King and I" instantly brings to my nose the smell of cucumber lotion from Victoria's Secret, because I'd put the CD on and lotion up my legs before bed. I don't listen so much nowadays, but I do like to watch musicals if they're on TV, and sing along at the top of my lungs.
In fact, let's face it, I'll sing along to anything. I used to do it at work, because we used to listen to good music and I was happy, and I really didn't care who heard. I like the singing. What can I say?

(Except to my sister: Sorry I was such a mess yesterday. I'm sorry if you thought I was a bitch. I feel bad, and when we got off the phone I cried, and then I picked a fight with S because I was so thoroughly unhappy with the whole thing. Sorry, Katrink.)

Well, I'm going to recommend

Well, I'm going to recommend something again. I think I'll start doing this every Friday, just because. It's gratuitous, and if you find something you like, you can thank me.

I've found a new radio station. I know plenty of people who are committed to never listening to the radio. S absolutely hates the radio, and even can't stand it to be on when he's changing CDs in the car. I feel more ambivalent about the radio; some days, it seems like it's all crap, and other days I can't get enough of it. Here in the Chicago area, however, we have some pretty okay stations. I can easily fill 18 spots on my radio pre-sets. I like XRT, I can stomach the Drive, and my nostalgia often leads me to Q101. And at Christmas, we've got 93.9 to fill a hole in our lives.
HOWEVER.

I have discovered the BEST radio station ever--Nine FM (three radio stations operating as one: 92.5, 92.7 and 99.9). It is the closest thing to real music taste than anything I've ever heard. Today, on my way home from the library, I heard these songs, in a row:
-The Hives--I Hate to Say I Told You So
-Goo Goo Dolls--Name
-Carol King--I Feel the Earth Move
Before that, on the way to the library, I heard Centerfold (J Geils, isn't it?). And last night, I heard Technotronic (holy god!), Jay-Z, and Eddie Vedder's "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away". Now, I don't like every song on the station, but I like the idea. They really do seem to play anything. I'm passionately addicted after two days. Listen to this radio station! I don't want it to go under.

A blog that I regularly

A blog that I regularly read does the Friday random ten, and I like it, so I'm going to start doing it, but because I have class on Friday mornings, I'm going to do it on Thursday night.

Take your Mp3 player (hopefully an iPod) and set it to shuffle. Press play and list the first ten songs that come up. Here's my Thursday night ten:

1. These Days--REM
2. Girl On the Wing--The Shins
3. Sunny--Morrissey
4. The Flood--The Soundtrack of Our Lives
5. Vida Mas Simple--Nil Lara
6. Army of Me--Bjork
7. Mystery (live)--Indigo Girls
8. Momentum--Aimee Mann
9. Miami--Counting Crows
10. Plenty--Sarah McLachlan

And yes, that was totally organic. My iPod actually spit out these ten songs.