Thursday, December 17, 2009

List.

Looking at my Christmas post from last year, I realize that I'm fairly spoiled (or something akin to it); in the year since then I've gotten nearly everything on the list that I wanted that was feasible. I don't own the Boulder Bookstore, but I got two new bookshelves (that are both full) and I got into graduate school for English. I didn't get Clive Owen, but Tim grew a very impressive goatee. I didn't get a greyhound, but that's only because we moved into a new apartment that won't let us have cats or dogs and Tim has promised to get me a new fish when I get home. He also renewed my subscription to NatGeo, got me tickets to the TerraCotta Warriors Exhibit, and got me a t-shirt that says "Someone at the State Department Loves Me."

Here is this year's Christmas list, nonetheless:

1. I wish Tim was spending Christmas, or at least New years in Colorado with me. I don't want my first kiss of the decade to be with anyone else.













2. EA Sports Active: More Workouts. I love my Wii Fit, but I'm kind of getting bored. I realize this is not a terribly sophisticated request, when I could also go outside and jog for free, but this is way more motivating for me. I also want Super Mario Bros. Wii, for sitting on my butt.



3. Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series. Yeah. That's right. For Tim and I both. Nerds have Christmas wishes too.









4. There are a ton of books I want (as always) but there are about four I haven't bought myself because they're just out of my reasonable price range:

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, by Jon Krakauer






Stitches: A Memoir, by David Small






Good Eats: The Early Years, by Alton Brown






Shop Class as Soul Craft: A Inquiry into the Value of Work, by Matthew B. Crawford






5. A combination DVD player VCR. Yup, it's a dead technology. The problem is that I have about $2000 worth (in DVD dollars) in VHS tapes, that I want to watch. It's cheaper to just suck it up and get a VCR. So, I mean, whatever.

6. For you to come and visit. Come see us. I will cook.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Ready. Break.

This is Emerson, who lives on the walk to the metro and sometimes comes BOLTING out the bushes, begging for love. He makes my day.

Yesterday was the last class of my first semester of grad school. And it. was. awesome.

Ok, maybe the class itself wasn't that awesome, it was actually kind of hilarious. It was a "final presentations" class in which everything went totally wrong for at least one presenter, and at least partially wrong for everyone else in some way. We ordered a pizza for the class and the pizza guy got lost on campus and kept calling the professor, who would answer the phone and shout "I CAN'T UNDERSTAND YOU. WHERE ARE YOU?" in the middle of someone's presentation. At one point a choir started doing vocal warm-ups right outside our door... It was bad.

And of course the class went almost 45 minutes long and my phone died, so by the time I got home Tim was put on his shoes and coat to go drive around looking for my dead body because I hadn't shown up.

But my final presentation of the semester went ok. (I like it when the only comment is, "you're on to something." Thank god.) And I'm glad I did it. Because in working on it I had a bit of a breakthrough content-wise, where before I was sort of floating around in space thinking there had to be a story out there somewhere. If you're interested, the paper is on the Jamaican poet Louise Bennett, who was a comedienne and a champion of the Jamaican dialect.

So I'm in the home stretch now. One 20-ish page paper to turn in before I go home on the 16th and the semester is done. I'm completely finished in my other class and my professor has already told me I got an A there. I've told myself that if I can get A's in both classes I'm going to reward myself with a Georgetown sweatshirt.

My reward for getting IN at all was a t-shirt. My reward for graduating--if I can manage--will hopefully be a nice education, a job, and a small pile of loans.

It feels really nice to have made it to the end of the semester. Nothing like the end of the first semester at Centenary, with Dead Week and Finals, etc. Just me and my paper. Chillin'.

I'm excited about next semester's classes (Sex and Time in 19th Century America and Testimonial Fictions & US Latino Lit.) and about going home for a month, and about the fact that Georgetown looks like Hogwarts to me. That excitement is ALMOST rubbing off on the paper, so it ALMOST feels like I'm excited to write a 20-ish page paper. That's how I can tell I haven't yet been in Grad School long enough to be bored/tired/frustrated.

Good.

Friday, December 04, 2009

Happy Guiltmas.

Ever since I was little I've had the exciting task of choosing where to spend the holidays every year. I always said when I was younger that the best thing about having divorced parents (Yes, doubters, there are good things about having divorced parents) was having two of lots of awesome things. Like two cats (12 cats), two bedrooms, two sets of friends, etc. Unfortunately, the shittiest thing about the whole arrangement is the life-long accompanying sense of "holiday guilt."

This is the awesome sensation that comes when you know you have two groups of people who want you to be with them, and who love you enough to let you choose where to be, but also enough to be disappointed when you're not there. This means that no matter what you do, you're disappointing someone. And in case you think I have a Rock Star Complex, and am sad that I can't bestow my glorious and benevolent presence on everyone at once, a lot of the time, the person I'm disappointing is myself.

Cheerful, I know.

Wait there's more. Like, fact that I never expected to attach myself to a Texan. What this means is that now, rather than two potential groups of people to disappoint, there is a third, half a country away, and the fact that Tim and I will probably just never get to see each other on Christmas morning because of the long-standing "thanksgiving one slope, Christmas the other slope" principle, which dictates that my holidays are pre-dedicated to one side of the Rockies or the other.

I've always wondered how this delicate "pleasing people" balance would be thrown off if I had a sibling to take off some of the pressure, or if I didn't live so far away from everyone to begin with, or if I talked about politics a lot and loudly so I wasn't such damn good company.

I know other people and families deal with this problem all the time, oh but if only there wasn't so much guilt involved. Some days I wish I could let someone else tell me where to go and when, but then I would be guilty and a ping pong ball. Until someone invents teleportation I suppose I will have to continue my 16 year tradition of doing the best I can with the support and grace of my distant friends and family.

Gifts help. Just sayin'.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

e.e. cummings

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles.........far.........and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far.........and.........wee
and bettyandisablel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's spring
and
.......the

.............goat-footed

balloonMan.........whistles
far
and
wee

(Thank you e.e. cummings, I needed that. It is not spring, but for ten seconds in my brain, it could be. Also, "mud-luscious" and "puddle-wonderful"? Perfect.)

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Brain Explosion


I shouldn't be blogging.

I should be writing a paper. I'm just excited because I've officially reached Grad School Critical Mass Level 1. I'm not going to kid myself and pretend that this is real critical mass because I don't have a job and I'm not working on my thesis or my oral exam yet, but I do "finally" have not just buckets and buckets of reading, but like super-human amounts of writing, reading, presenting, and things I'm supposed to be attending on top of this bizarre cold that won't get worse or better, but just sits on my chest and face like a troll.

Why is this exciting? I have no idea. I'm weird. It's not like I'm accomplishing anything. When I have tons of reading, I can read for seven hours a day; I'm fairly certain I'm the only person in my class who actually reads every word. Now, however, I've entered the procrastination zone, which mostly just entails stacking and restacking my piles of articles and books like a fortress around my laptop. Maybe while I'm making lunch the words will seep from the books into the laptop and my paper will magically assemble itself.

Most likely not. Most likely I'll bring lunch to my desk, get cream cheese all over my fortress, and have to start from scratch.

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

The Book(s) of the Dead

I meant to post my special Halloween Edition Book Review on Halloween, but oddly, had a lot of things to do that day what with all the candy, and the costumes, and the candy, and the Halloween. If, like me, you're not quite over it yet (really, does Thanksgiving offer all that much to look forward to instead? They should reverse the order, put Thanksgiving in August so there's a nice steady build up through the end of the year...), then this might offer you something to hold on to. If you're sick of it, save this for next year and move on.

Anyway, this year I went for the Classics, Frankenstein and Dracula; and then a little search for lost souls on the side.

Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus
by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

I must first admit that the decision to read this book was not wholly mine, and that it was required for one of my classes. I tried to read Tim's untouched copy about two years ago and didn't make it through the introduction. That shouldn't color whether or not you decide to read this book though, it should only make you think carefully about which edition you buy. Mary Shelley made a number of changes to the text in her life, up to the point when she sold the copyright (for something insane like $37) and neither she nor anyone in her estate ever made another penny off of the book again. A good edition, like the Chicago edition (pictured above), shows the changes that she made, which are sometimes fairly significant. The nice thing about it though, is that if you're reading for enjoyment, you can largely ignore the little editorial bits, but the occasional footnotes actually help.

It seems as though everyone knows the story of Frankenstein, the monster made from human body parts who throws little blond girls down wells and is afraid of fire, etc. etc. However, as with anything usurped by Hollywood, what's been churned through the machine is only a shadow of the original work. You probably know that Frankenstein is not the monster, but the man who creates him (the monster has no name), but did you know that the Monster reads Paradise Lost, and Plutarch? That there is no Igor? That Victor Frankenstein begins to make a female monster, but realizes the monsters might have baby monsters and rips her body up and throws her into the sea?

Suffice to say that the book is not old hat. The story is nothing like what you've probably heard. And if, at the end, you don't want to throw Victor Frankenstein into the sea, I would be surprised. (Also, and I know this will thrill you nerds out there, the book is entirely epistolary. BAM! Now you have to read it.)

Who I would recommend this book to: my Dad, and Tim if he ever finishes The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Dracula
By Bram Stoker

"Sometimes I think we must all be mad and that we shall wake to sanity in straight-waistcoats." -Dr. Seward's Diary

Imagine, if you will, spending seven years researching Eastern Europe, vampire folklore, and madness, and then sitting down at a typewritter and spending three more years writing the 600 page classic that is Dracula. Again, if you've ever seen a movie about "Dracula," even Bram Stoker's Dracula, you can pretty much just throw that out the window. Again, the novel is written in the epistolary style, with letters, diary entries, news articles and other scraps and documents thrown in here and there. Here though, Dracula is pretty much exactly the bad news you think he is.

The brilliance of Dracula, the demon and the book, is his absence--how rarely one sees his face after the first few pages, and yet the effects of his evil are felt on every page as sickness and insanity spread like wildfire. Dracula is, in a lot of ways, an adventure story, an almost epic quest to rid the world of supreme evil, undertaken by a motley (and luckily very wealthy) crew of five men and at the center of it, one woman, whose chief virtue is that she "has the brain of a man." Whether or not you consider that a compliment, consider what Dr. Van Helsing says: that evil men can be conquered because, despite their cleverness, they have the minds of children.

Who I would recommend this book to: pretty much anyone. Really, I loved it. Also, it's a classic.

Spook, Science Tackles the Afterlife
By Mary Roach

About a year ago I reviewed Mary Roach's book, Stiff, which stuck in my mind not only because it's all about dead bodies and all of the weird things that people do and have done with them, but because while I was reading it in the GW Hospital Emergency room (don't ask), I read about how one of the founders of the GW Hospital was a convicted body snatcher who used to rob graves and do all sorts of unsavory things with the corpses. (How's that for a long sentence?)

Spook looks at all of the ways (wholesome and not-so-wholesome) which people have tried to use science to prove the existence of a soul, it's weight, color, texture, smell, shape, and whether or not their is badminton in the afterlife. It's a quick read for two reasons: 1) Roach's subjects and infinitely fascinating and 2) she's adept at seeing the just the right level of humor in situations where people either take themselves too seriously, or are dismissed outright (at a school where people learn how to be Mediums, for example). Roach gets to the bottom of all sorts of things you didn't know you wanted to know about, like the "21 grams" theory (21 grams being the supposed weight of a human soul), and children who remember their past lives.

For all the times when there is some kernel of real science hidden in these phenomena that makes you wonder, "what if?", there are 10 other times when it's just fun to laugh at crazy people.

Who I would recommend this book to: Jared, J-Darnutz (yes, I just called you that on my blog), and my mom.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Cheers to Halloween!

I love Halloween. And I don't mind that the build-up for holidays goes on for a whole month with this particular holiday. The whole glorious month of October is filled with candy, falling leaves, carving pumpkins, scary movies, skeletons, and all that other creepy stuff that, for some reason I can handle so much better than I can handle the overly cute fat cherubs that seem to accompany every other holiday. Halloween is like a reset button for flushing all the cute crap out of my face. Cheers to you, Halloween. Cheers to you, for saying boo to the rest of the year.

Monday, October 26, 2009

True Stories

My graduate school has this really interesting thing where they try really hard to get everyone to be a cohesive group. They have a lot of happy hours and events all organized by this group called the EGSA, or the English Grad Student Association. This all seems like a really cool, healthy, non-English majory environment, the only problem is that somehow I have totally managed to avoid all interaction with these people, through no real intention of my own.

For instance, the main event of all this, the kicker, was a barbeque held at the Department Head's house the first week of school on the day, of course, that I was moving into my new apartment. In the normal world, missing something like that is not a big deal, however it has actually been pointed out to me by other EGS's that I wasn't there and that this is not acceptable. And only in a half-kidding sort of way.

The second issue is that somehow, I got into the two most unusual classes on the schedule, apparently. Not the content of the classes themselves, but the attendance. Every other class I've seen is replete with students, and I hear them talking about their classes in the library and in the grad lounge. However, I am the ONLY English grad student in one of my classes (trust me, it's obvious) and there are only seven of us in the other.

All of this build up to say that Tim and I finally tried to make it to one ESGA event on Friday , a Ghost Tour in Old Town Alexandria, so we could meet some of these elusive people. We were five minutes late getting to the meeting spot and not a soul was there (five minutes, people!?). We had no info about where everyone was going from there, but after overhearing someone on the phone mention a ghost tour we got a hint and hunted down the spot. They were long gone, but the tour organizers nicely let us onto the next tour without making us pay again.

I love ghost tours, but I will admit that the one in Dover, England, where a) a lot more people have actually died in Clifford's tower and b) our tour got chased by this manic duck that kept biting people, was a lot more exciting.

Anyway, we went 17 metro stops to meet a bunch of people who we never saw. They weren't at the cafe where they were supposed to meet afterward either. I know there are other grad students out there. I've just still never met them.

On the other hand, yesterday Tim and I went to AU because my History of the Book class read a graphic novel called Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel, and American had hosted a colloquium on her work that day. The colloquium ended with her giving a talk which was really entertaining and actually fairly amazing. She brought slides of her illustration process and of some of the photos she used to create a number of the illustrations in the book. She also brought slides of some of her favorite comics as a kid and of her own comic strip, Dykes to Watch out For.

The talk was funny, and enlightening, and sad too. My favorite authors to listen to are always the ones who are a little mystified by their own process as well, and who may not exactly know the answers to everyone's questions, but who still manage to tell you something about the book that you never, ever could possibly have gotten by just reading it, or by reading an interview or an article.

The book is a memoir about Bechdel's relationship with her dad, his sudden death, and the fact of his closeted homosexuality in relationship to her coming out. After she gave her talk, people asked questions (and I don't think a single person asked a question that wasn't a question, it was, in short, a miracle) and because she was so funny, someone asked if she was funny in her family and she said, "yeah. I was. My mom is funny and I think learned that from her. I loved to make my dad laugh, but it's not like that was hard, you know. He laughed at the road runner. Someone pointed out once that there's not a single picture in the book where my dad doesn't look very stern and serious, so... you know... ...it's not a true story."

I love that.

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Step Right Up!

In addition to the new trend seeing strangers vomit in public (which I've now see twice in the past three weeks--once on a metro bus and once echoing majestically across the National Mall), Saturdays are emerging as a key player in my week.

It's not that Saturdays weren't always awesome, it's just that now I think about Saturday all week because I have time to, and then I get to hang out with Tim, as opposed to before when he got to hang out with me.

(I'm just going to tell you right away that this is a two part post. Here is the table of contents: Part I: The National Book Festival, or For Those About to Read, We Solute you; Part II: The Palace of Wonders, or What is the Recommended Dose of Burlesque for a Man of My Height?

Part I:

So--the point of this is that last Saturday we went to the National Book Festival, which is Laura Bush's legacy and brain child. It's like a giant rock festival, with eight stages, and food vendors, crowds of people waiting for autographs, rain or shine--only with authors instead of Van Halen. It's also exactly like VooDoo Fest or ACL in that you have to time which authors you want to see perfectly, and run back and forth between the tents, unless there's basically only one genre you care about and then you can stake out one spot all day and just send people to go get food and drinks.

It is NOT like a music festival in that I never saw anyone's DMB tattoos, smelled any pot, or was offered any hemp clothing, knock-off hats, t-shirts, henna tattoos, "tobacco" pipes, or stickers for purchase. However, I did get two free tote-bags and a children's book. Last year they gave out free bottled water. There were still plenty of puppies and babies.

Part of these shenanigans are author signing booths, where you can get your books autographed throughout the day, and the signing schedule does not remotely correspond with the speaking schedule. I'm going to leave out all the details, suffice to say that Tim had to carry around five of my John Irving books, a Lois Lowry and a Junot Diaz all day and not one of them got signed. There are DC residents far more dedicated than I.

While half of what I imagine where the teachers and librarians of the DC public school system waited in line to have John Irving sign their dog-eared copies of A Prayer for Owen Meany (sigh), Tim, Josh and I went to hear Lois Lowry speak at the Children's tent. Tim is probably right, she probably would be best friends with his Nana. I can see them going out for breakfast. But only if they take me. Also, she wanted everyone to know that Jonas isn't dead.

After that, I headed to the Fiction tent where I heard Julia Alvarez accidentally; I was waiting for John Irving. She is a Dominican author and was an excellent speaker. Everyone who asked her questions asked them in Spanglish because they were so excited to speak to her, which made me happy.

Then came John Irving. Now, I kind of want to just lump the next four authors into one story because it's more like, "then came John Irving, followed by Nicholas Sparks (whom I wanted to murder), followed by Junot Diaz and Colson Whitehead (who completely negated Nicholas Sparks and can be in my murder-posse if they want to)".

Here's the point: John Irving, Junot Diaz, Colson Whitehead, and Julia Alvarez (though I didn't know about her until I heard her speak) all write books from somewhere more than their brains or their hearts or (ugh) their souls. They write books because they just do. John Irving said about his repeated themes of wrestling, and flawed, fragile, otherworldly children that it frustrates his critics, but that a writer doesn't chose his obsessions, that they obsess him. That, as a writer, and probably as a human, if you're not repeating yourself, it's because you have nothing important to say. He said he took nearly 20 years in writing his latest book because he knew it had to be in third person, but he couldn't figure out how. It kept coming out in first person. It seems like a small issue, but it's everything. And it's worth waiting 20 years to write the book correctly.

Someone asked Junot Diaz about the connection he felt with Oscar Wao now that it's out in the world and he said, "writing that book was so painful, for so long. There is so much of my life in that book. I handed it to the publisher and I was like 'fuck you, book.'" He won the Pulitzer Prize.

Nicholas Sparks got on the stage and talked about how when he writes his books he always thinks, "what have I never, ever, done before. I want all of my books to be totally different. I've done teenagers in love, I can't do that. What about a young man? I can't do a book about two 60 year-olds falling in love for the first time. If you're just now falling in love we've got something to talk about." And my first thought was, "yes! you do have something to talk about. That DOES sound like a story." Then he talked about how he got his inspiration for his most recent book...

Disney asked him to write it for Miley Cyrus. So they could make a movie and fulfill her contract.

Makes your soul sing.

He talked about how he hates his wife's girlie dogs, but loves his manly dogs, how he coaches a winning track team, how he runs a christian school that "accepts everyone" (I've heard that before) and then he was literally said "well, now you know how awesome I am!" (no seriously) and left.

He is what Colson Whitehead would call a "Fake-ass Members Only Jacket Wearin' bitch."

Part II

A few days before we moved into this apartment, I discovered this:





I also discovered that they have Real! Live! Amazzzzing! Burlesque shows almost every day in addition to being a ridiculous "dime-museum" and bar. And what's more! more! more! is that they're eight blocks from my house. The only problem is that when I made this Spectacular! discovery, we were moving in to our new place, Tim was starting his job, and I was starting school. The show I really wanted to see, The Skullduggery and Skin Show, is on the first Saturday of every month, which was exactly the day that we moved in here. Boo! Hisssss!

So, I somehow managed to keep this ridiculousness a secret for a whole month, and it was a surprise up to the moment that Albert Cadabra, the MC, came out and swallowed a 30" balloon. The show included magic, Ruby the Wonder Dog (jumping through a flaming hoop!), Gal Friday doing burlesque of course (notable numbers include a tribute to Spinal Tap with the song, "Big Bottom." Turn it up to 11.), and this month's special guests: Clowns Betty Bloomers and Jellyboy.

It may be a little hard to tell with the woman's head in the way, but this is a photo of Jellyboy having swallowed a 23"(?) sword with a flame thrower on the end... and then bending over and lighting it. What you also can't see is all the people standing along the wall, trying very hard not to catch on fire.

Before swallowing the world's record length-sword for us, Betty Bloomers also hung upside down and swallowed a coat hanger... which was a little gross when she bent it inside her esophagus... but then there were a number of points in the show when the MC would say "Do you want to see (blank)" and we would all scream "YEEEAHHH" and then we would all scream "NOOOOOOO!" (i.e. Jellyboy drinks wine from a tube wrapped around his head, through his nose, out his mouth, around his head and into his mouth again. Yum. Yum. Yum.)

However, she also did a beautiful fire eating act that had everyone completely entranced. Not that it's difficult to entrance drunk people, and having a) a beautiful girl, b) magical music, and c) fire, helps, but it really was sort of breathtaking and amazing.

During intermission Gal Friday raffled off a hand made tote bag full of B Movies, home made pasties, a whoopie cushion (perfect for date night?) lots of candy, a signed pin-up and lots of other goodies. Of course, the winner was the one Bachelorette in attendance with her horde of pink-tiara'd companions. I would say the drawing was rigged but even Albert Cadabra was like, "you? Oh god. Of course."

Sorry we didn't get any pictures of the burlesque... I guess we were distracted.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

I want to be Fleshy and Comfortable.

I haven't done a book review in a very long time and I probably won't get to do one, at least not one purely based on my own fancy, for a while. I *like* what I'm reading in Grad School but it's not the same as the complete euphoria I felt at getting to collect my own library and read whatever I wanted, really, for the first time ever.

I've read a lot of stuff since my last book post, but a lot of it was for my book club. Fully 50% of the people who read this blog (I imagine) are in that book club, so I'm not going to bother reviewing those books. The book club is a totally odd creation because we always go into it with such enthusiasm and try to stick with it, but without the wine and cheese and good company it sort of fizzles out (let's be honest).

This year we read, or at least attempted to read, the following books + (Three Word Review):
The Enchantress of Florence, by Salman Rushdie (Not His Best)
The Witches of Eastwick, by John Updike (Movie Ends Better)
My Lobotomy, by Howard Dully (Lobotomies are Fascinating)
and
Pygmy, by Chuck Palahniuk (Talk Funny Terrorist)

The problem now is that I have a read a lot of books in the time since I last posted and I have a lot to choose from, but I won't overburden you with silliness. Some things will just have to go into the vault. Now, the the wheat (as opposed to the chaff).

East of Eden
by John Steinbeck

First let me say that I have never read something by John Steinbeck that didn't reach into the very roots of my soul and take up residence there. With that out of the way, this book is so wonderfully American. It is the story of families and individuals in relation to the Salinas Valley in California (of course), but what's wonderful about it is the multitude of vignettes and character studies that fill the book. The overarching story of the Hamiltons and the Trasks is grand, but I absolutely love the amazing little stories he tells about the characters. The book is very fleshy and comfortable. It's serious and sad and sweet, but Steinbeck drives me completely crazy because I find myself saying, "God, that is so true. There is so much truth in this."

"In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influences and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of though or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world." p. 412-413


The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain

This is a rediscovery. Over the Fourth of July I got into the habit of calling Tim "Huckleberry", and in Colorado I picked the book up and started reading the Modern Library Classics introduction to the text by George Saunders, which has section headings like, "The Ending, OH MY GOD, the Ending" and "Let's Burn It, Then Ban It, Then Burn It Again." To me, if you cannot laugh at Mark Twain, or with him, rather, your days must be very stressful indeed.

I highly prefer Huck Finn to Tom Sawyer (although, honestly, if I was one of them I'd probably be Tom) because Huck looks at the world the way it is and reacts to it normally. Tom lives in a book and, to the detriment of those around him, tries to squeeze the world to fit his fantasy. As a 13 year-old high school kid reading this for the first time, I didn't get any of this, and I didn't care. Ok, ok, there's a raft on the Mississippi and this crazy kid who's naked all the time, and this guy Jim, whatever... but read it again. It's so much better now.

The Lord of the Flies
by William Golding

This too, I re-read for probably the third or fourth time. I picked it up because I felt like my life was completely insane at the time and like everyone I knew was trying to throw everyone else I knew off of a cliff. After re-reading this, I'm sort of astonished and maybe proud that we hand this American middle schoolers and say, "here, process this in your wee brains." If the book was not required reading in your middle or high school, know that it is the story of an airplane full of young boys, about 4 years to 16 years old who crash land on a tropical island with no surviving adults and only Piggy to serve as their slightly tubby and asthmatic voice of reason. If I would be Tom Sawyer, I would also be Simon. Which would not work out so well for me.

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
by Michael Ondaatje

This is a very short collection of poems from the author of The English Patient. The different styles and points of view, the photographs and even interviews put together a fascinatingly jumbled, but also, sometimes, deceptively crystal clear portrait of this larger-than-life figure and also of Pat Garrett--because you can't have a hero without a villain and vice versa.

It's not an easy read. The poems aren't simple or "fun." But they're intriguing. Also, I'm in love with the cover.



Blindness
by José Saramago

The very definition of "not simple, fun, or easy to read." The words are easy enough, sure (despite the fact that the style will make you feel the urgency of the story, with its almost utter lack of periods and paragraphs). But this is surely one of the most disturbing pieces of contemporary fiction I know. The premise is simple: one day, everyone in the world begins to go blind. But because the process is gradual (over the course of a few weeks, rather than instantly or over a few years), those with sight throw the rapidly increasing population of the blind into quarantine. This is mainly the story of one group, in quarantine in an abandoned mental asylum, stricken by the horrors not only of a world totally without sight, but without any sort of real provisions.

Like American Psycho, I have to say that the book is a good book. I'm fairly certain there's something about the style and concept that borders on brilliance--it won the Nobel Prize for God's sake. But there are parts of the book that are so disturbing. You will want to scrape your mind clean with a brillo pad, but unfortunately, it's very hard to unlearn something once it's been learned.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Something like normal?

So. Graduate School.

This marks the end of the first sort-of-officially-normal-week of graduate school. It's actually the third week that I've had classes, but because of labor day, and moving, and registration and all sorts of odd reasons, this is the first week that actually resembles what the next two years might feel like.

To begin with, Tim started his job on Monday, so the tables have finally turned. I'm the one who stays in bed while he gets up and goes to the office, and then I do whatever Grad Students do all day.

You would think, since I only have two classes, that means that I do a lot of Beatles Rock Band and trying to convince myself to workout, but not really. My two courses this semester are The Poetics of Diaspora (on Mondays) and The History of the Book (on Thursdays) which leaves a nice little 2-3 day wedge of time in between each class to freak out about how I'm going to read two books of poetry and four articles and create a presentation--for each class. Really though, it's exactly what I was hoping for in every way except that it takes me over an hour to commute to campus on the other side of DC.

To make things really fun, my professors this semester are named Mark McMorris and Michael Macovski, which is a continual source of confusion on my part.

So far I like them both, but History of the Book is my favorite. It's one of those classes where everything makes perfect sense and a) talks about things you think about every day and b) answers questions you've had all your life. The only problem is that it's one of those classes that's on the cusp between English and Communications, which, as usual, is where I find my interests so I keep thinking "Ohhhhh crap... maybe I should have been in the Communications department."

I have too much interest in art and technology to be happy with mere English. Gah. Traitor. The Comm people would never let me read enough novels.

Anyway, the apartment still isn't entirely unpacked. We haven't put a single piece of artwork on the walls, if you can believe it (unless you count the take-out menu holder that Karma Rinpoche gave me in TsoPema). My office is really the only thing that looks like anything, probably because that's where I hang out all day (and it's the room with the most sunlight).

The apartment is pretty incredible though. And more incredible is the park across the street that is, at all times, filled with happy, running, playing dogs. THEY ARE WONDERFUL. I can't go study in the park because all I do is watch the dogs going, "hey guys, hey guys, hey guys, BALL!!!"

I swear we'll be done unpacking soon. And when we are, we'll post pictures. And you can come and stay.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Little White Feet

Frank and Walter were in love...

There's a certain majesty about someone who drools in your hair at 4:00 a.m. and bites your ankles to herd into the kitchen, where he has deposited a bleeding snake for your pleasure. Walter was particularly fond of sitting just far enough away from you that you knew he was there, in the window of the barn, at the top of a tree, behind a plant, with a look of contentment on his face as though he had forgotten that he was the one who had been rescued. He was certain that he was the rescuer. The saggy-bellied knight of his country castle.

It took a monumental amount of effort to get Walter (and Wiley) Home. Carly found them in 2004, huddled by the back tire of a truck in the parking lot of a restaurant in Shreveport and brought them to me when they were small enough that I could fit both of them in the palm of one hand. Not thinking I'd be able to keep them, I called them "brown cat" and "white cat" even though everyone I knew was determined to give them names. Tim and I took them to a "No-Kill" shelter when they were old enough to open their eyes, feed, and bathe themselves a little, and the woman behind the counter said, "sure, we can put them to sleep by the end of the day." I was horrified and she said simply, "No one wants plain striped cats."

So I took them back.

They lived with me (and Zack and Jonathan) in Shreveport, on Merrick St. for a number of months while I got ready to go to France, and are really the only pets I've every had that were just mine.

White Cat became Walter and Brown Cat became Wiley when it became clear that I couldn't do anything with them but "keep" them, which meant taking them to Mom's. But first, they moved to Tim's parents' house in Plano and lived in the bathroom for a bit before we drove all the way to Colorado with them.

My mom thinks I'm a shithead for always bringing her cats, but she obliged them (and me) by buying them a piece of sheepskin to cuddle at night... like they had at home, and when Walter began his crusade to build a nest in her hair every night I think her initial annoyance developed into something like eternal and undying love.

Within a few months of moving to Crawford, my Great Grandmother died and my mom moved into her house and shortly afterward, Wiley was hit by car. It is a hazard of living in the country, where animals live indoors and out, and people swerve to hit them on purpose.

Four years later, Walter is gone as well.

It probably seems ridiculous to care so much about one cat. We have eight others for God's sake. But honestly, if the others were to wander into kitty Shangri-la and not come back, it would be no tragedy.

There was something very whole, and solid, and comforting and yes, human, about Walter. His death was more horrifying in that he tried to come home, even after he was hit.

There are some perfect animals, who have no flaws. Whose minds and attitudes are finely tuned into our own so that they are, in a way, better friends to us than any person could ever be. Even when they are forcing the bathroom door open while we shower so they can drink from the faucet, dropping half-dead voles in the laundry basket, "helping" us pack, or knit, or eat, or tie our shoes, peeing--yes, peeing--in our hair, or making us chase them through the tall grass with a flashlight at 11:30 at night because, please God, we don't want them to get hit by a car...

It probably seems dramatic to you, but my world is not as nice of a place. And I'm hurting for my Mom because I know she's hurting.


"If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans" ~ James Herriot

Friday, September 04, 2009

Short and Sweet


I'm supposed to be packing so I'll keep this brief.
  • Tim and I are moving to our new apartment tomorrow. We're both so excited and a little bit nervous. Excited because the apartment is amazing. Nervous because everyone who was going to help us went out of town for Labor Day weekend except Saint Alsn, who can only help us until she has to go to work.
  • I started graduate school on Monday. More precisely, I had orientation and registered on Monday, my classes started on Wednesday, and meanwhile I've been packing all week. I still haven't gotten any of my loan money from the school (learning to deal with the Georgetown Administration should qualify people for some kind of award), so there's been ZERO income on my part for weeeeeeeeeks. Pasta it is!
  • The best, the best, the BEST news of all, the head of the Graduate Department asked me to come and see him yesterday because he had some good news... it turned out that the news was a full tuition scholarship for the full two years that I'm at Georgetown. He was so sort of funny and nonchalant about telling me (though he was obviously happy) that I'm not sure I reacted with the proper level of freaking out. My life actually CHANGED yesterday. This really and truly changes everything for years and years to come.
  • Wheeeeeew. (That's the sound of a sigh of relief, in relation to the post above.)
  • Our trip to Colorado was amazing and wonderful and I really, really, truly and absolutely do want to move home. But right now, now that I'm actually on the path I'm supposed to be on again, instead of just dumping my days into a job for no reason, I feel much better about being here and I hate the city a lot less.

Monday, July 27, 2009

1001 American Nights

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Mexico...Gettysburg...David'sWedding...Amber'sWedding...
CountryDinnerParty...WorkisCrazy...VisitedGeorgetown
OMansionTea...TWOWEEKSLEFT!

Saturday was the first day I got to sleep in in over a month. Even though Mexico technically counted as a vacation, there was no real sleeping in or zoning out because we were all together and we wanted to do so much fun stuff.

Every weekend for the past god-knows-how-long I've either flown or driven a minimum of four hours to be with everyone awesome, doing every awesome thing you can imagine. The only problem is that now I'm a more than a little flat broke and tired because I still had to go to work during all of that.

The next two weeks, in spite of being my last two weeks of work, when most people shut off their brains and stop caring, are going to be the busiest, most ridiculous weeks of work I've had in a long while. I'm in the middle of so many projects. Other than that it makes sense for my "real" life, I have no idea why I thought it was a good idea to quit right now. (Oh yeah, and I still need money, which is about to get messy.)

Instead of easing into grad school, I'm being shot from a cannon.

At 6:00 a.m. the day after I leave my job (Farewell!) I'm flying to Colorado for basically the rest of the month. Meanwhile Scarlett, aka Elsa, my Pie Elf, is being deported--ahem, is voluntarily departing the country--back to Cyprus. Which is more than a little depressing. When I get back Jana and I are just going to have to get massively drunk and hold some sort of ceremony.

The thought of being kicked out of America is literally so horrible to me that it makes me physically nauseous. I like to travel, ok, fine. But I can't imagine not being allowed in America. Sometimes I freak out a little because I love this country so much, and I'm more than a little upset that we're kicking Elsa out because of one little checkbox on one stinkin' tiny little form. Amazing.


Anyway, before I babble on and on, here are the greatest hits from this month. Enjoy.














Gettysburg! Charge!
This was the flag-bearer on our battleground walking tour. We were the North and at the end, we marched through a field against the South. When we met up in the middle all we did was yell at them and turn around and go back. Elsa and Alsn say, simultaneously, "Aw, I was ready to headbutt someone," and "I was ready to knucklepunch someone." Which is how I know my friends would be good in a fight, because I was satisfied with yelling and running away.


Oh yeah, there were also battles. And dudes laying on the battlegrounds watching the battles. Which is what I aspire to be.







The night before David's wedding, at about 1:00 a.m. Jason tricked me into walking a mile to Jack in the Box, which was closed inside, so we had to go through the drive through. The people in the car behind us clearly hated us (and I hated Jason for lying about Onion Rings) but the window lady liked that Jason tipped her.


Silly David, she needs her arms, don't pull them off!









The night AFTER David's wedding we all went bowling. I have lots of pictures of this, including one of Kristin scoring an 18, falling on the floor, and being Sad Panda, but I think this one is "Art."



I took 185 pictures at Amber and Jonny's wedding so not overloading you is a chore. Let me know if you're not and Facebook and you want to see the rest. Really, I think this one says it all.


And the piéce de résistance, after spending 3 out of four weekends with Jared, I feel like I earned this. This was my prize and the frosting on my cake:






















Chicken dinner. This is before we put out the salad and after we ate all the jalapeno poppers. Recipes to follow... eventually. BTW, me, Elsa, and Jana made all this from scratch in my apartment WITHOUT AIRCONDITIONING. Tim kept us hydrated with beer and lots of water. Dan helped us eat and... wrote an essay for the Foreign Service?

Sunday, after finally getting to sleep in, Elsa too us to the O Mansion (O, Mansion!), where we had High Tea and explored the 100 rooms and tried on lots of ridiculous hats. The place has more bathrooms and books and autographed guitars and weird 80's paintings... IDK, and everything, absolutely everything is for sale.

Here is Jana looking smashing in a $100 hat.

And here are Elsa and Annie, Through the Looking Glass. Please don't take this lady away from me, Uncle Sam.