Quodlibets

I wonder (re: lollipops)

I was just looking at this, on Go Fug Yourself.  Please go look, so that what I say to you makes sense.  And besides, the girls at GFY are always funny and snarky and enjoyable.  So even if you think I'm an idiot, you will like them.

What I wonder is this: Does this girl like the way she feels?  I mean, throw the looks thing out for just a second (though she looks like a) a lollipop and b) a skeleton), and consider how it feels to be in your body.  Does it feel good to be that skinny?  I obviously don't know the answer because I wasn't even that skinny at birth.  But I imagine that it feel horrible, that you can feel all your bones, like they're about to poke out of your skin.  And I imagine that it feels weak, like you couldn't lift boxes that weighed more than five pounds or so.  I just can't imagine anything that would make looking like that be worthwhile.  Seriously.  It's too much. 

But someone (?) is telling this girl that she looks good.  That she's perfect for Hollywood.  And god forbid, she's not alone!  Kate Bosworth needs a cupcake, stat!  And Renee Zellweiger has taken the art of looking like an alien and run with it.  If you look at Kate, for instance, in Blue Crush, she's gorgeous and toned.  She looks hot in a bikini.  S had expressed interest in doing not so mentionable things to her.  But now, she's uncomfortable looking.  You couldn't sleep with that!  It might break.

I don't feel any pressure to look like them, to tell you the truth.  And I think I look healthier than them, and if you gave me a stylist for my hair and clothing, I'd be more attractive than them.  And that's saying a lot.  It's hard to feel the destructive influence of the media on myself when I'm preoccupied with figuring out a way to stuff doritos down some nice girl's throat.  It gives me, anyway, a healthier perspective to losing weight.  I know I never want to look like that, because, ahem, that's called "Eating Disorder Skinny".  It's gross.

But really, do these girls think they look good, all corpse-like?

I can't believe I forgot!

I just want to say a big congratulations to my cousin J and his girlfriend K, who had their first baby yesterday evening.  It was a boy, and he came into the world a month early, almost to the day.  Eager to be in this world, and none the worse for the wear, apparently.  I wish them nothing but the best, and I hope the baby keeps on doing as well as he's doing. 
Supposedly mom and baby will be home tomorrow, so crossed fingers that she (and he) will be strong enough.

Congratulations to J and K, and welcome to the world, Baby L!

I walk alone and I walk alone

Because I am a child of my age, some of my hardest thinking is done while listening to whatever music the crazy kids are listening to these days.  Right now, for me, it's Green Day.  (Disclaimer:  I'm pretty sure that the band that recorded Dookie and the band that recorded American Idiot are different bands.  Did aliens take over Billie Joe Armstrong and Dirnt and Tre Cool?  I think so.)  The album is fantastic, like everyone said it was, but I knew the first time I heard "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" that it would be.

So anyway, I was listening to that song, driving home from class, when I realized that I am profoundly alone.  Alone in ways that don't equate to being without people, because I'm not without people.  I think what I mean is, I'm in a program (at the community college) designed for 40-year-old women.  And I'm 25.  It's just not working for me; I feel completely bored and put off by what is happening in most (not all) of these classes.  I'm working this class alone, and no amount of sympathy or empathy from my loved ones can change that fact.

My boyfriend loves me, and I know he wants me to be happy.  And vice versa.  But we are alone in the sense that no one else, just me, can make the decisions to do the things that make me happy.  I chose this path, and I'm walking it alone.  Oh, believe me, it's wonderful to come home and rant and rave to S about how unhappy I am, and it's fantastic when he hugs me to him and tells me that it doesn't matter--and that I'll survive.  But I know that when I go back into that classroom, I am, effectively, alone.  And this is, of course, applicable to many decisions we make in our everyday lives.  We are, essentially, alone. 

I don't feel sad or depressed knowing this--mostly just serene.  I know some people really can't stand the thought of being alone, that they need something to fill the void that in some ways, will always exist.  I think, in many ways, that religion is partly that.  How many times have you heard, "You'll never walk alone because Jesus walks with you"?  Five million?  Six?  All I'm saying is that the thought of walking alone isn't so bad to me.  I like the idea that I am responsible for the choices I make--even when they turn out to be bad ones, like the one to do the LTA thing--and I like the thought of me making my own happiness, which is also what it boils down to. 

Of course, I'm not talking about my life being devoid of other, loving people.  That would be hell.  Alone, I guess, doesn't mean being lonely.  They're different.  I hate being lonely, but I don't mind the thought of being alone.  I guess this is sort of cynical, to say that we can never truly be attached to someone else, but I think it's also realistic.  S has made sacrifices for me because he loves me, but he doesn't have to, and he won't do it forever either.  I can choose to act in concert to him, or I can not.  And he can as well.  But we're both alone; we choose to stick to the same path.  Does that make sense? 

(I'm pretty sure Dookie never inspired this sort of thinking.....)

Blogging Meme

Who do you know in real life & how?
Katie+Blog=fun -- My sister
Inside my head -- met at Borders, close friends now
Intersections -- boyfriend of a friend of my sis
Life as Katy Knows it -- Katyla is a friend of my sis
Alex(andra) -- friend of my sis, mom's a classmate
Janet's musings -- ex-roomate, friend of sis
The library diva -- professor, currently

What five blogs do you usually not go a day without checking?
(Well, I use a newsreader, so I don't check any blog unless I know the author has posted), but....
Katie+blog=fun
Bitch PhD
Go Fug Yourself
Dooce
Electrolicious

What five blogs send the most traffic your way?
Katie+Blog=fun
Inside My Head
Starfish and Coffee
Frogblog
Bitch PhD

What are your top five keyword searches this week?
(This isn't by week, but all time)
"I need you so much closer"
"Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King"
"popener"
"hizzle"
"ambivelent"

found at Starfish and Coffee

Sumerian Mythology

Well. Let me just say that suddenly, Reader's Advisory has become a lot harder than I ever thought it could be. It's not that I didn't enjoy the book, it's just that I didn't really understand it. I read it really carefully (it took me from Weds until today with no intermediary reading to keep me piqued. All I've been reading is this book. Kind of scary.), because I know that I have to write a little bit about it, and let me admit that I have no idea what to write. I'm going to have to do some quick thinking, because how can you summarize a book you don't understand? I bet you can't do it well, if you can do it at all.

The book is Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson. Someone told me it was "cyber punk", which, if I knew what that was, would help. I guess it's not my type of sci-fi. But the thing is, I have this nagging feeling that if I understood the book, I would have liked it. I liked the characters, I liked the basic ideas in the book, but when it comes to Sumerian mythology, I was lost. Something about virus and religion. I think. Do you think this could be my blurb?

Now, at least, I've started another book that I'm sure to understand, as it's a romance novel. I can't wait to do some enjoyable reading again. Still, I'm fairly certain that Reader's Advisory might be the best thing that ever happened to me, in that it's making me a more disciplined reader than I ever have been. That can't be bad.

If anyone has any insights to Sumerian mythology, can you leave a comment? Thanks.

I'm moving to Typepad because I can't stand this shit

This was written almost an hour ago and blogger sucks ass.

Charlie Trotter's was okay.  I mean, I know how special it was that I got to eat there.  And I know how special his cooking is.  But maybe, like my sis says, it's not for us.  We like things like macaroni and cheese and cookies, tomato soup and blueberry muffins...and so halibut with white wine emulsion and sunchoke puree is just a little too much for us.  But here are my overall impressions.

The first course was an okay seared tuna.  It was the tiniest little square of it, in a watermelon/radish puree.  It was okay, but I can honestly say I've had better seared tuna.  It was served with a salad of daikon radish and seaweed.  I hate seaweed.  I never want to eat seaweed again.  Ever.  The second course, for me (because I cannot eat shellfish) was a beet salad.  Pureed beets and other beets and a frozen vinegarette (very mustardy).  I love beets, so I was totally in love with the dish.  I thought it was excellent.  Very red.

The third course was the halibut with a white wine emulsion with the aforementioned sunchoke puree.  Weird.  Okay, but weird.  I did like it, but I did not love it, and would never order it off a menu.  The fourth course was absolutely lovely.  Rare, thinly sliced duck breast with a sauce of boudin (sausage traditionally made in Louisiana), corn grits and matsutake mushroom.  Unbelievably tasty.  Really, really good.  It's hard to describe how wonderful the grits were, with the sausage sauce.  I would eat this again in a heartbeat.  The fifth course was a tiny bit of bison steak, very rare on the inside.  It was very well seasoned, and came with a sauce of cocoa nibs (very bitter and rich) and also a couple of pieces of porcini mushroom.  The sauce combined with the bison was actually quite good.  I quite enjoyed this course as well.

After all that, they brought the desserts.  They all sort of appeared at the table at the same time.  There was (in no particular order): prickly pear sorbet, passion fruit cake, rum baba, olive oil ice cream, water buffalo yogurt ice cream, rice pudding with tarragon and blood orange, small pieces of kumquat, and a chocolate terrine with kefir lime sorbet and foam.  I wasn't too fond of any of these, but the rice pudding.  The rice pudding was absolutely devine, and I'm pretty sure I could have eaten a whole giant heaping bowl of it with no effort whatsoever.

Two other things:  the bread that they served (rolls, really) was absolutely amazingly wonderfully good.  I wanted so badly to stash one in my purse for S, because he would have loved it.  And at the end of the meal, they brought little macaroon-like cookies, and I ate one that was pink.  That was a bad idea; it tasted like a flower.  If I could have spit it out without looking ridiculous, I totally would have.  Ick, ick, ick.  I think it was rose-flavored.  Uck.  Uck.  I said that I wanted to bring one home for S and tell him it was yummy just so I could share the misery with someone.  But I didn't.

All in all, a fantastic experience.  I'm not sure I ever need to go back to Charlie Trotter's.  But I wouldn't say no either.

A movie review and a restaurant preview

S and I went to see Fever Pitch last night. It was very excellent, and when the credits came up and I saw that the Farrelly brothers directed it, the ball shaving part made sudden sense. All in all, though, it was less Farrelly than it could have been. Jimmy Fallon was adorable, and at one part, he does something that not many men do (not ball shaving--hopefully most men engage in some sort of manscaping) and I thought: "Why am I not dating Jimmy Fallon?" and "Why is my sister not watching this movie? She will love it." I've come to the conclusion that Nick Hornby would never sign on to do a bad movie version of one of his books, and he was a producer for this one. Think about it: High Fidelity was wonderful, About a Boy was almost perfect, and now this. I've never thought about how unfaithful the movies are to the books, simply because the movies are wonderful on their own. He should be congratulated.

And tonight, I am going to Charlie Trotter's. I am going to worship at the altar of haute cuisine. I never thought that I would ever in a million years go, but I received an invitation and there's no way in hell I would ever turn it down. I do feel apprehensive, because of my food allergies. I'm allergic to shellfish, and I think that it is in the nature of haute cuisine to use ingredients that are rare/expensive/fine, and some shellfish fall into this category. I know that Trotter's caters to food allergies all the time, but I feel like I will be missing a part of the experience, because whatever I eat will not necessarily be what Trotter planned to cook. Does that make sense? In this sort of menu situation, you eat what the chef puts in front of you, and I can't necessarily do that. But still, I'm very excited. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

S isn't going, which is just as well, because he doesn't eat vegetables or fish or anything that might slightly be construed as weird. I'm proud of him, though, because last night he grudgingly went to Stir Crazy for me, and he really liked his meal. We ordered chicken satay, and then he had sesame chicken, which he thought was really good. It makes me happy, because now I know we can go to Stir Crazy more often. I love making my own stir fry. It was sort of expensive (but we did also have dessert); we haven't gone out to a nice dinner alone in a long time, though, so it was very good. I had a really good night, all around.

I will try to post after my meal tonight, just so that I don't forget impressions and specifics, but no guarantees. It could be a late night.

My contribution to National Poetry Month

I probably won't post too many poems (though I love them--ooooh, maybe I'll post one of my own poems at some point this month), but this might be my most favorite poem.

The Pomegranate Eavan Boland

The only legend I have ever loved is
the story of a daughter lost in hell.
And found and rescued there.
Love and blackmail are the gist of it.
Ceres and Persephone the names.
And the best thing about the legend is
I can enter it anywhere. And have.
As a child in exile in
a city of fogs and strange consonants,
I read it first and at first I was
an exiled child in the crackling dusk of
the underworld, the stars blighted. Later
I walked out in a summer twilight
searching for my daughter at bed-time.
When she came running I was ready
to make any bargain to keep her.
I carried her back past whitebeams
and wasps and honey-scented buddleias.
But I was Ceres then and I knew
winter was in store for every leaf
on every tree on that road.
Was inescapable for each one we passed.
And for me.
It is winter
and the stars are hidden.
I climb the stairs and stand where I can see
my child asleep beside her teen magazines,
her can of Coke, her plate of uncut fruit.
The pomegranate! How did I forget it?
She could have come home and been safe
and ended the story and all
our heart-broken searching but she reached
out a hand and plucked a pomegranate.
She put out her hand and pulled down
the French sound for apple and
the noise of stone and the proof
that even in the place of death,
at the heart of legend, in the midst
of rocks full of unshed tears
ready to be diamonds by the time
the story was told, a child can be
hungry. I could warn her. There is still a chance.
The rain is cold. The road is flint-coloured.
The suburb has cars and cable television.
The veiled stars are above ground.
It is another world. But what else
can a mother give her daughter but such
beautiful rifts in time?
If I defer the grief I will diminish the gift.
The legend will be hers as well as mine.
She will enter it. As I have.
She will wake up. She will hold
the papery flushed skin in her hand.
And to her lips. I will say nothing.

I love Boland. Her poems are gorgeous. This one is from In a Time Of Violence.

A reader vs. a Reader

Last night's class was great.  I felt, for the first time in a long time, that my intellectual needs were being satisfied.  Even if we were just talking about the different subgenres in Mystery, and the difference between Chicklit and romance and erotica.  For me, these topics are enormously interesting.  I could talk about them for hours.  I wasn't bored even for a minute in class (except when a couple booktalkers didn't follow directions), and really felt as if there were some very interesting things being said.

But I don't think everyone in the class felt that way.  I think a few of the women around me were bored.  Bored with the discussion.  I could almost hear their thought processes:  "A book is a book is a book.  Why do we have to analyze it?"  And when we started talking about series, and how forgiving we are as Readers--a few of them seemed to get almost enragedly bored.  If that makes sense.  "Who cares if a writer goes in a new direction?  Stop reading her/his books!  It's easy."  And I can see where these women are coming from, I really can.  When a topic is boring to you, it becomes boring to sit through hours of discussion about it.  But perhaps maybe this isn't the class for them.  Because at the heart of it, this class is about Readers, and these women are readers with a lower-case r.  There is a difference.

My mom and sister--two of the dearest people in my life--are voracious readers.  Not Readers.  It's not an insult at all--it's just the way they read.  My mom loves her mysteries, and my sister loves romance (and a limited amount of literary fiction, maybe more than I like) and they read a lot.  But if you asked them to talk about the differences between suspense and thriller for two hours, I'm not sure they'd want to.  Pragmatic as they are, I think they'd feel that what does it matter, as long as you like the book.  Like I said, this doesn't diminish the fact that they both love to read, and read every night if possible.  But it is different from me.  I am passionate about books.  I eat, sleep and breathe books.  I could talk about books for hours--abstractly or concretely.  I want to know why I read what I read, and why other people read.  I truly want to understand the difference between chicklit and romance.  I like books--owning, holding, understanding.  I am attached to both the physical and mental aspects of books.  I am just attached to books.  It's a form of insanity, I think.

Anyway, my point is that these women, who were bored last night, are in for a lot of torture.  Because there are those of us in the class--the Readers--who will hijack the discussion every week.  And that's exactly how the class should be.  This is a class for Readers, by Readers.  I hope by the end of the class, the readers in the class come to understand the urgency of reading I feel.  And I hope that I can somehow understand how detached they seem to be about it.  But I'm not holding my breath.

Pet Peeves (two of them)

I was going to compile a list of some of my pet peeves, but I think I'd rather highlight just two of the things that bother me. And oh, there are so many. But these two things really, really bothered me today.

First of all, when going to see an informal tour and presentation at a library with 20 other people, it is not okay to think that the tour guide/speaker is speaking just to you. Hence, don't say things like, "Yes" or "I know just what you mean" loud enough for the rest of the damn class to hear you. We don't need to know about your personal experiences with how when you call a certain bank or whatnot, they don't ask your for your SS# but your birthdate. And how blah blah fucking blah. I guarantee that the person giving the presentation isn't interested in what you have to say, and neither are we. Oh, we might have listened the first one or two times, but god above, by the time you said, "Yes, I know...." the 35th time, we were done. Because dude, she totally wasn't talking to just you. There were 20 other of us there. (Tangent: How many times a day do you think: "Shut the fuck up" or some variation thereof?)

Secondly, if there is a gas station on the right side of the street, and you are on the right side of the street, you don't need to turn right on the street directly before the gas station, thus necessitating a left-handed turn into the gas station across two lanes of traffic, thus blocking the one lane of traffic trying to get home behind you. Turn into the goddamn gas station past the other street where there is a right turn only lane into the gas station. I'm trying to get home! I'm hungry. Use the five brain cells you have and do the LOGICAL thing, asshole. And PS--mini-vans are so not it right now.

Phew. That feels better.