Quodlibets

Feeling Funny and Free

Have I mentioned that my 10-year high school reunion is a short six months away?  I can't remember.  Anyway, it is, and I'm going.  I actually feel none of the misgivings and fears that I felt before my college reunion last summer, which is interesting.  There's a reason, though, and the reason is that I don't give a shit what these people think of me.  The few people I cared about in high school will be happy enough to see me, I'm sure, and otherwise, whatever.  I'm not good at small talk (oh, just ask someone about my performance at the college reunion), and in fact hate to make it, and I just dare anyone to pull out photos of their kid.  I can't be sure there won't be an eyeroll or two accompanying the niceties I force out through clenched teeth.  And even though I have a job that is pretty good, live in a good location, and love my boyfriend very much, I can think of nothing more horrible than to repeat those three things over and over for five hours.

To that end, I'm bringing Kate.  Yes, I'm bringing my sister to my reunion.  There's no way in hell I'd subject S to any period of time with people from my high school, unless I like them, and S has already met most of my closest friends from the time.  I don't want to go to S's high school reunion, so why should he go to mine.  And even though Kate was only a freshman when I was a senior, we went to a small school, and she knows lots of kids who are my age.  I think the plan is that Kate and I will find a table, park ourselves, and proceed to dish about every single person who comes in the door.  (Except that at this point, I don't remember about fully half of my graduating class.)  I was hoping Yalie could come, but (I think) she's off on an amazing trip to South America for a sort of seminary-exchange for the four weeks that immediately surround the date of the reunion.  Oh well.  Kate and I will have fun, and if we don't, it's at our parent's country club, so we can travel the two minutes by car home.  Or if we're drinking, call my mom and make her pick us up.  In a pinch, we could even walk, or coerce my little brother into being our driver.  But I suspect we won't drink, and it doesn't really matter.  The point is, we can easily escape if we want to.

The reason I'm talking about it now is that I sent in my check (I paid for Kate.  It's only fair.) and have pretty much committed myself to this thing.  Again, no misgivings.  It's just...surreal.  This morning I looked at a wedding picture of one of my best friends from high school (no contact since freshman year of college), and it was just weird.  I don't know why.  Just weird.  So yes, this is going to be weird. 

American Craptoral (Time 100)

Maybe there are people on the planet who like Philip Roth's books, but I have regrettably joined the group of persons in the world who DON'T like them.  I finished listening to American Pastoral 12 minutes and 4 seconds after I started my commute this morning (uh, yes, it is very difficult to switch audiobooks on your iPod while driving 65 on the Eisenhower) and all I could think was "Really?"  Because I'd been eaten up wondering when in the last two-thirds of the book we'd get back to the narrator, who was a rather interesting fellow, and the answer is, we didn't.  Which is annoying.  Also, I'd been wondering how Dawn and the Swede end up divorced, and the answer is, "I don't know" because Roth decided to not enlighten us. 

I guess it's not horrible that I at least cared enough about the main character that I was wondering these things, but I also know that the only reason I cared at all was because I listened to the book.  Reading that thing would have been excruciating, and I'm almost 100% certain I would have quit.  My sister hates that I think audiobooks should count toward the Time 100, and I've been trying to explain to her that the only way I'll finish these books is to listen to them, but she still maintains it's like watching a movie-version of the book.  Which is patently ridiculous (no offense, Kate), because the only difference between the book and the audiobook is the someone is reading it to you.  (Also, they occasionally throw in some crappy music snippets, but really, those are stupid.)  Is a mom reading a book to a kid at all like the kid watching the movie version of the book?  I can't imagine anyone who would say yes.  Especially if you only listen to unabridged audiobooks.  Which I do. 

Anyway, the point is, audiobooks force me to slow down and understand every single word.  I'm an incredibly fast reader, and my temptation, when reading Time 100 books, is to skim.  (Which, lets be honest, has to cheating on this thing more than audiobooks are cheating.)  Lest you immediately adopt some sort of horrified attitude, let me tell you that I skim almost every single thing I read.  It doesn't hamper my understanding of books, and let my stellar grades from kindergarten through college and on to my certificate program be evidence of that.  If skimming was really a problem, wouldn't my essays be crap?  Wouldn't I test poorly?  The answer is no.  Once I start to skim these Time 100 books, it's all downhill.  Because I already am bored by the books, and so I start to skim faster.  It's the skimming faster that's the problem here.  Because then I do start to miss things, and it's like I'm in a race to see just how quickly I can finish the book.  And that's bad. 

The audiobooks are helping me enjoy this horribly boring Time 100 books more than I was, which is to say, I no longer hate them so much I want to shred them when I'm done with them.  Now I only sort of hate them, which is a huge leap, don't you think?  I believe that instead of discouraging me from using the audiobook format to complete this task, my sister should cheer and be happy, because I'm actually getting something out of these books when I listen to them every day.  Also, and this is just a fact, there's really not THAT many of them out there on audiobook.  So however many I read will only be a fraction of what is already out there.  This is really the first one I've listened to (unless you account my aborted attempt to listen to The Fellowship of the Ring, but I don't, since I never finished it and will clearly have to re-try.), and I've just bought three more with a lovely gift certificate someone gave me for audible. 

I think, and I know this pisses Kate off, but I think I'll have to keep doing the audiobooks as long as they still have some left.  I won't go buy audiobooks of things we already own, but I'm not going to buy any more of these books in actual book version.  It's not a good value to me; the audiobook clearly is. 

Though I still don't like American Pastoral, and I'm peeved by how many freaking loose ends Roth left.

Roast with Veggies

Yum yum!  Though it required buying a lot of peripheral items (a cutting board with a juice channel, a meat thermometer) and a trip to the butcher's, my roast was a hit.  Basically, I took and eye-of-round roast, slathered it with olive oil, coarse salt, pepper and thyme, and then cooked it on a cookie sheet with yukon gold potatoes, one red, one yellow and one orange pepper, and one red onion.  Oh, and three whole garlic cloves.  Oh, and I stuck slivered garlic into the roast.  And actually, I used a pretty modest amount of olive oil, making this one of the more healthy meals you can cook and eat.  I did end up cooking it a bit longer than suggested, since S likes his meat more on the medium-well side of medium, and the meat thermo was telling me to leave it in longer.  Which meant that I had to take the veggies off early for fear of burning and yadda yadda.  But the meat thermo didn't lie, and I would say that medium-well was where we ended up.  Still slightly pink in the middle, but mostly done.

The potatoes were absolutely delicious, as were the peppers.  The onions were okay.  Not the best ever, but edible, especially when combined with a piece of meat.  The garlic cloves came out mostly spreadable, too, and since we made some of those tubed breadsticks, that was nice.  I did hate the fact that most of the tasty crust of the meat came off, as it was fat.  (You know, to keep the roast moist.  Thanks mooj, for confirming that I was correct to leave that fat on!)  I did kind of regret that, because tht salty, thymey crust was awesome on the end piece.  Still, all in all, it's a one dish meal, and besides all the chopping, mostly hands-off and easy to cook.  I think it's something I'll make again, although only every once in a while, because roasts are expensive.  Although, I'm hoping to make some sort of beef wrap with lettuce, green pepper and a little mayo for dinner tomorrow, thus making use of the leftover roast and spreading the cost out over two meals.  Very nice.  (We found a GREAT butcher in the city, which we'll probably continue to use when we need nicer, tastier cuts of meat.  Or homemade sausages, beef jerky, pepperoni, salami, ravioli...etc.  Great place.  Can't stress it enough.)

Anyway.  Yummo!  Yay for me!  Two dinner experiments in one week.

L'Ultimo Bacio

I just watched a movie that I absolutely had no feeling towards whatsoever.  I can't say that I hated it, because I didn't.  But I certainly didn't like it.  To be honest, I cannot believe that Zach Braff chose to make "The Last Kiss" as his follow up to the outstanding "Garden State", a movie I felt so passionately for that I went to see it twice in the theater. 

It's incredibly, horribly hard to feel anything for a character in a movie who does something so shitty as what Braff's character does to his girlfriend.  He's too freaked out to marry her, but pretends to be cool when she gets pregnant.  I mean, they're both on the cusp of 30, and it's a pretty natural time to be starting a family.  So he acts cool, plays like he's happy, and quietly and completely freaks out.  Fine, okay, I can understand all this.  But then he cheats on her.  He kisses someone, and when she freaks out, he drives to this little chippy's dorm room and fucks her.  There's no other way to put it.  And understandably, pregnant girlfriend doesn't want him to come back home.  She's having none of it.

I wasn't sympathetic to Braff's character in the least.  He was a shithead for cheating, and he was a shithead for making excuses like "I'm scared" (whine whine whine).  Maybe I'm an unforgiving bitch, but real partners don't cheat on their pregnant girlfriends when they're scared of the pregnancy.  And I don't think that she should have taken him back, though that is the indication given at the end of the movie.  I know she's pregnant, but dude, he cheated.  Once a cheater, always a cheater.  I've never had a real-life experience that didn't bear this maxim out. 

I'm not sure what the filmmakers were going for.  Were we supposed to feel for him?  Were we supposed to root for her to take him back?  Either way, the movie wasn't successful, because I didn't do either.  Anyway.  I was so angry about a film that would make excuses for a cheater that I had to write about it.

The Triumphant Return of New Recipes

Actually, not so triumphant, since what I cooked wasn't very good.  It was from one of the new year "Lite" food recipe mags, and it looked so promising--chicken sausage, pasta and broccoli rabe.  I have never cooked broccoli rabe in house, only eaten it out, and though I liked it, I know it has a reputation for bitterness.  Which supposedly you can cook out of it.  Except I didn't cook the bitterness out of it, which is why it tasted ucky and bitter.  I choked down as much as I could, being that it was a major component of the meal, but ewwww.

And I know that light cooking is hard, because you have to find flavor from other places, but the combination of white wine vinegar and garlic and a teensy weensy bit of olive oil does not a tasty sauce make.  I feel like a garlic bomb.  A very unsatisfied garlic bomb.  The chicken sausage I bought was totally tasty though, so that's not a total loss.  They're the precooked style sausage, and they're specifically Italian style.  I think I could saute one up and add it to pasta and basic tomato sauce for a healthy, filling meal.  I have two left, too, so maybe I can even just make a meal of one of those on a bun.

Sigh.

My kitchen is a disaster-area, and I know I need to go clean it, but I'm really dreading it.  Ah well, I'll never be cleaning up this craptastic meal ever again.

(Upcoming:  More recipes!  I'm cooking a beef roast--and no, I'm not kidding--in the oven with veggies on either Sat. or Sun. depending on how motivated I feel.  It's from the same magazine that this recipe came from, but being that it's basically a roast on a cookie sheet with potatoes, onions, green peppers, olive oil and some salt, pepper and thyme.  I can't see how that could be bad.  I've never done a roast in the oven, and am slightly worried about making sure it's cooked to our liking.  Any hints?)

Book Meme

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback? I don't really care.  I buy all three, though I tend to limit my hardback purchases to gift certificates or only favorite authors.

Amazon or brick and mortar? Mostly brick and mortar, unless I have gc's for Amazon.  I don't like to wait to get books, and I don't like to pay shipping.

Barnes & Noble or Borders? Borders.  Duh.

Bookmark or dogear? Both.  I dogear when nothing else is around, and I bookmark with post-its when I remember to.

Alphabetize by author or alphebetize by title or random?  Ha.  As if.  My collection isn't divided like that.  It's divided by the principle of read vs. unread, and it's not alphabetized within that.  My books are stacked on shelves two deep, dude.  There's no way alphabetizing would help.

Keep, throw away, or sell? Keep, mostly.  I never sell, because I don't buy used books, and I never throw away.  If I want to get rid of books (something I'm doing today, actually; about one year's accumulation of books I don't want), I donate them to my mom's public library's friends of the library.

Keep dustjacket or toss it? People don't really throw them away, do they?

Read with dustjacket or remove it?  I used to take them off, but then they never got back on, so now I just read with them on.  Suprisingly, they don't get too beat up.

Short story or novel?  I. Hate. Short. Stories.

Collection (short stories by same author) or anthology (short stories by different authors)? I hate short stories.  I hate short stories.

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?  Potter, hands down.  Though I own almost all of both series.  I'm just missing the end books in the Snicket series.  For me, the books got too monotonous after three or four books.  Same thing, different book.

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks? I never, ever make conscious decisions to stop at chapter breaks.  I read too haphazardly for that.  Such as when I'm drying my hair.  I don't have time in the morning to keep reading until the end of a chapter.  Or at lunch.  I might have to get on a work thing right away.  I think I've conditioned myself to the point where if needs be, I can even stop in the middle of a sentence.

“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”? Neither.  Though the former will probably never be my style.

Buy or Borrow? Lately, a mix of both.  I borrow books from both the library and a few friends, and I buy books probably once or twice a month.  (Enormous amounts, though.)  Now I have a car payment, so I probably won't buy anything but the most favorite of my authors, which is going to be torture.  But there is a public library right across the street from my library, and I'll keep going there.  They have a pretty nice new book display.  Also, I do check books out from my employer.

New or used?  New.  And only new.

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse? Um, a bit of all of these.  Book reviews probably least of all.  Actually, I try to keep on top of things with Amazon's popular pre-order list, and the coming soon recommendations from them for me.  I also read Library Journal monthy, and I get some good titles from there.

Tidy ending or cliffhanger? This is all you need to know:  I love love love romance novels.

Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading?  Hello?  All of them.  I read all of the time.  Drying my hair at 6 am, eating lunch, in my car if I have to wait for something, at home, and I listen to audiobooks on my commute.  I'm not picky.

Standalone or series? Both.  I like series, but they can get tiresome.  Depends on who's writing it.

Favorite series? Oh gosh.  There are so many.  I loved Julia Quinn's series, though that's most likely over.  I love Sherrilyn Kenyon's "Hunter" novels.  I like Elizabeth Peter's Amelia Peabodys, and I don't mind Anne Perry's Victorians.  Who else?  Kim Harrison's series, Janet Evanovich's Plums, and Charlaine Harris' Sookie books.  I read a LOT of series.

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard? Angels and Men.  It was never published here, as far as I know.  I found it in Rome, and I'm onto my second copy.

Favorite books read last year? Erm.  I'd have to look at my booklist.  Because when you read 200-some books a year, it's hard to pull individual titles up.  Especially from last year.

Favorite books of all time? Oh, god.  Thorn Birds, maybe.  Or GWTW.  I've read those both so many times I can probably quote from them.  I think I read Thorn Birds three or four times a year all through high school and college.  What in god's name does that say about me?

In which I am less dramatic, but no less convinced

So yeah, my post yesterday was dramatic.  I'll readily admit it.  Because in truth, I'm not sure that a ban on abortion would have a gigantic effect immediately, at least on my life.  I'm certain that there are women who would experience the aftershocks of the decision almost instantly, women who get pregnant the day after it happens, women who face death without the lifesaving procedure that abortion sometimes is.  (Sometimes I wonder if pro-life people really do want to go that far, and if they would be able to look a woman in the face and say, "See ya!  Hope you had a nice life!"  Because I wouldn't.)  I bet that I'd turn even more psychotic about contraception than I am now, simply out of terror.  But that might be the only consequence in my life, unless of course, the worst thing ever happened, and I got (I shudder, I shudder, I shudder) pregnant unexpectedly and what would most likely be unhappily.  And then I'd be a girl without a choice.  Without a realistic choice, that is. 

What worries me more is that after tackling abortion, some pro-lifers will go straight for contraception, because there are loonies out there who do think that any form of contraception is baby murder.  They're already chomping at the bit, trying very hard to make it very hard for teenagers to understand exactly how contraception works and exactly why you should use it IF you decide to have sex and IF you decide you're not ready for a baby.  That's what really scares me.  And you can tell me about how they're not all going for it, and how that'll never come to pass in this country, but I also never thought we'd stand by and watch while 1100 people were killed.  By a hurricane.  It's less than that oh-so-sound-biteable 9/11 attack, but that 9/11 attack, while tragic, isn't REALLY because of the direct failure of our government to act in a manner that would have saved people.  So yeah.  I watch the things going on now--our attorney general muddying the habeas corpus waters, illegal wiretaps, torture, our support of a corrupt war--and I just don't think I know at all what this country is capable of.

So is this country capable of taking away contraception?  Don't know.  Probably not, but then again, I don't know for sure. 

I'm pro-choice.  I think women should be able to choose to have an abortion (and you can call it killing a baby or murder and it still doesn't make me squeamish, because I point blank think women have to be allowed to have moral free agency) and I think they should be able to choose IF they want to use abortion, what type they want to use and when they want to use it.  And I'm against pretty much anything that's going to deny women the right to those things.

Dramatic, yeah.  But for a reason.

Why I am Pro-Choice

Simply because it is impossible for me to not be.  Free, I can no longer be put back in chains, and I can't imagine a world where women step back and become shadows again.

Dramatic, maybe.  It's in my nature.  But call it what you want, frame it how you want, if you take away the right to choose, we can become, at any minute, prisoners in our own bodies.

It's not for me, and it's not for my sister or my mother or my boyfriend's niece, or the multitude of women in my life.  We're meant for better than second-class citizen-dom.

I love too many women to not be pro-choice.

Super Bowl Shuffle

Hi.  Remember me?  I'm back.  Sorry for that long absence.  Per the coffee question, our houseguests were here, and things were just crazy.  And then, you know, Bears fever sort of took over.  We were planning on watching the game holed up in our apartment, alone for the first time in three days when my dad called and invited us to a playoff party that included homemade Italian beef.  We ditched the apartment and watched a very fun game on a very fun large-screen TV.  Which brings us to today. 

Do you think the Bears will do another "Super Bowl Shuffle"?  No, probably not.  And even though I was six when they last went, I do remember that song.  Who in Chicago doesn't?  We probably watched that thing 100 times.  When you hear it now, it sounds cheesy and lame, and seems like the worst possible thing a team could do in the two weeks before the big game, minus any sort of activity that can provoke serious injury.  Anyway, the Bears are serious underdogs, I think.  Peter King (oh how I love Peter King and Monday Morning QB) has his list of "Fine 15" and the Bears are number 4 on it, behind Indy and the Pats and even shit, I think San Diego.  So I think that means that Peter King thinks we will lose the Super Bowl.  He thought we would lose our first two playoff games too, though, so maybe Peter King isn't the be-all and end-all of predicting wins.

Nonetheless, I am one of the most pessimistic sports fans ever, and I think the Bears will undoubtedly lose the Super Bowl, not because of any specific reason except that they are the Bears.  Doesn't matter who they're playing.  And to be honest, I'm not sure what I think of Indy.  I haven't watched them very much, and they looked good and bad last night.  In such a high-scoring game, it's hard to figure out why the team that won won.  At least, it's hard for me.  I just don't know if their defense is good enough to win, and it seems like maybe a dominating defense can win a football game.  Then again, it's gonna be hard to keep Peyton Manning down, no matter how good our defense is.  I'm not sure.  I'm waffling.

It's going to be a fun (long) two weeks before the game, and then the actual game will be super-fun.  Can't wait.

Suddenly

Remember how I think bananas are the devil?  Yeah, not so much anymore.  I've been eating close to one banana a day now for a few weeks.  Since I started the diet.  I've discovered that I don't like them unless they're very ripe, and that it's necessary for me to leave the last few bites.  I can't eat those.  And though I still don't love them, they're palatable.  They fill you up enough to make you feel like you can make it to dinner.

In other food news, I'm suddenly eating broccoli all the time too.  My favorite dinner right now?  Scrambled egg + egg whites, with Laughing Cow cheese, a bagel and steamed broccoli with lemon and a little salt.  I've eaten it twice in the last week.  It's weird.  I used to think broccoli had a foot-like taste, but I'm not so sure anymore.  I will say that I like it really mushy, and I think my mom used to steam it so it had some crunch to it.  That makes me feel kind of uncomfortable inside.  And actually, I try to cut a lot of the tree-trunky part of the broccoli off, because that part sucks.  And the lemon juice part is just because it makes broccoli taste better than without.  I actually squirt lemon juice onto almost all the steamed veggies I eat because it tastes better to me that way.  I like citrus.

Which brings me to the next food item I can't get enough of:  clementines.  I'm eating two a day, usually.  I eat them as a snack, because they're so very low point.  I remember two years ago when I first dieted, I ate clementines like mad, and I've found that this is no different.  I don't like regular citrus fruit all that much, but there's something about the ease of eating these that makes them appetizing.  There's less white crappy rind stuff left on the fruit as you're peeling it, and thus you don't have to taste that bitterness.  And no seeds!  Love them, love them, love them.  I think I'm going through a bag of the "cuties" in about a week and a half.  Mmmm, it's too early for a snack, but now I'm craving clems!

Oh yeah.  GO BEARS!