Delete, Delete, Delete

Sometime while I was in Uruguay I got addicted to playing The Sims Social on Facebook.  Before that, it was Gardens of Time.  Before that, I played Plants V. Zombies on my phone.  This trend can be traced back in an almost unbroken stream that includes Snood and Collapse pretty much alllll through Centenary until we got the Wii, and on back through Jill of the Jungle, Commander Keen, Duke Nukem, Wolfenstein, Rooms of Doom, and about a million other DOS games that I could play for HOURS on end without stopping. I think I played Klondike so much during my year off between high school and college that it's amazing everything didn't appear to float before my eyes on a green felt background.

Most of the time I don't feel like all that time I wasted really put too much of a dent in my life. I haven't developed any weird deformities at least, and I have to edit my resume down to one page instead of up.

But holy crap, it's sort of time for the madness to stop.

Today I deleted The Sims off my Facebook account, and the sure sign that it was definitely time to blow that sucker up: I felt a little pang of physical pain when I clicked "delete." Because the games on Facebook are designed to be more addictive than crack cocaine and reality television combined, my addled brain actually thought for just one moment, "I'm erasing all my hard work!!"

Bitch, please.

Unlike solitaire and Wolfenstein, which you could play in an infinite loop and never asked anything of you, the new games are exactly like what I imagine your corner pusher is like. A little flashier, a little more street wise, and WAY more withholding. You can't play The Sims or Bejeweled or what-have-you on an infinite loop until your brain melts and you feel better and then go about your life again. Instead, they give you a little taste, (Here, have 15 "energy" or "coins" or whatever) and when that runs out, in order to even make the game minimally functional, you have to either,

a) wait around for the game to "recharge"
b) pay actual legal tender for fake, non-legit "gold" or "bux"
c) beg your friends like a pathetic asshole for more "life juice" to get your fix or parts to build your spaceship, etc.

AWFUL.

If I wanted to play games and feel bad about it, I'd go to one of the three arcades left in the United States and beg unsupervised teenagers for quarters.

Anyway, I have a wedding to plan and a novel to write and like, anything else on earth to do. I'm not gonna lie; I miss it already. I had finally saved up enough "Simoleons" in-game to buy a grand piano for my Sim, which took me about a week of hardcore unemployed time-wasting.  And the fact that I even dedicated more than 25 seconds thinking about that--more time than I've spent practicing my ukulele, for sure--is why it totally had to end.

The Audio/Biblio Club

I'm currently reading Anna Karenina. So.... If I don't write a book review now, it may be a while. Plus, I just realized I haven't written one since September. Like, as in, September.

For some reason I didn't read nearly as many books in Uruguay as I did in Panama. I'm going to blame NaNoWriMo. It's hard to read and write and hike Machu Picchu at the same time.

Also, there are two audio books on here. First let me say that even I am a little baffled by my recent trend of listening to audio books. But because I'm too lazy to cancel my Audible account, I keep ending up with credits and I have to use them on something. It's not that I necessarily have anything audio books per se, it's just that I'm the opposite of most people who like them.  Most audiobook listeners chose audiobooks because they don't have time to just sit around and read. On the contrary, I have nothing BUT time, so I have to invent tasks to do while I listen to an audiobook. Like crocheting a blanket, for example. And spinning my own yarn out of cat hair. Things haven't gotten that extreme yet, but I have about ten audiobooks in my queue, so look out.

Your next birthday gift could be very impressive. And maybe a little itchy.

God, No!: Signs You Might Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales
By Penn Jillette
(Audio Book)

There are really two parts to this book that are woven together sort of willynilly. Part one is covered under the, "Signs You Might Already Be an Atheist" portion of the title, and part two falls under, "Other Magical Tales." The two parts really have to be rated separately and will appeal to you differently depending on what you're in the mood for.

If you know anything about Jillette's argument style from the show Bullshit on Showtime, you probably know what you're getting into concerning his arguments about religion. As an Atheist, it's nice to hear someone say out loud (or on paper, I suppose, if you have the book version) that it is absolutely possible for atheists to have morals, principles, and a general philosophy of human decency. The sections of the book that are written about Atheism are by far the strongest and most interesting sections. Jillette is not only interested in Atheism, he suggests that the only useful form of Atheism is one that is unflinching and unapologetic.  I'm not as compelling as he is, or I would also have a show on Showtime, but suffice to say that his arguments made me feel awesome about saying, "I DON'T KNOW."

If you're mainly interested in boobs and magic tricks skip all of the philosophy and head to the more memoir-y sections of the book, which are replete with just that.  Did you know that Teller, the other half of "Penn and Teller" is actually a normal-sized person? He just looks small because Penn is like 6'9" tall? Yeah. The more you know. I'm less interested in these parts of the book because I really don't care what un-named hot models he dated, but I supposed it's good that the book it not one long tirade on Atheism, since there are enough of those.

Actually, I take it back, there are not enough of those.

The Hotel New Hampshire
By John Irving

Oh John Irving.  Master of taking random shit, slapping it on the page, and somehow making a book out of it.

I got the urge to read this book because somehow I learned that it was about a family who lived in a hotel with a bear. That's only a small fraction of it. Of course there's a bear.  Of course there's a football player. Of course there's a circus. And someone named Freud and someone named Egg.

This is not my favorite of the many John Irving books I have read, but it certainly deserves credit for engulfing you in the world of the Berry family, for whom it would be unusual if something usual happened. I got mad at the book about half way through for reasons I won't say. I don't want to spoil anything, but it wasn't a case of bad writing or boring plot that moved this book from the "like" column to the "not so much" column. Let's just say I didn't agree with Irving's narrative decisions.

I don't really know what to say. You don't read a John Irving novel to get from point A to point B. You read it to see how "normal" life is actually very strange and vice/versa. I just... Ugh. Why John?

The Invisible Mountain
By Carolina De Robertis

This novel was recommended to me by my friend Natalie at the Embassy in Montevideo when we arrived there. Uruguay has a rich literary history and bookstores on seemingly every corner, but it's almost impossible to find translations of any native Uruguayan books.  This one solves that problem because--TA DA!!--it's originally written in English.  De Robertis was born to Uruguayan parents in England and now lives, I believe, in the US. Fun!

This book is fantastic, and if you don't believe me, ask O Magazine, where it was number nine on the list of terrific reads for 2009. Would Oprah lead you astray? Would she?

This is the story of three generations of Uruguayan women in one family, in Montevideo and Buenos Aires, through the Peron era and revolution. It's one of those wonderful novels that combines history, mythology, a little bit of magical realism, vibrant story-telling, and great characters all in one package. Plus, you learn things without even trying. Did you know that Uruguay had a military dictatorship? Neither did I.

Town House
By Tish Cohen

I paid 99 cents for this book and thus my review might be a little higher than it would be if I had paid $9.99, if that makes sense. For 99 cents, this book was hilarious and fun to read. For $9.99, I might have wanted a little more out of it, maybe. It's the perfect beach book.  Too bad it's December.

Town House is about Jack Madigan, the agoraphobic son of deceased rock star Baz Madigan.  He lives in the titular town house with his teenage son and their deformed male cat, Mrs. Brady. He is tormented by three people: his ex-wife's marvelous new boyfriend, the realtor who is attempting to sell his town house out from under him, and a nine-year old girl who may or may not be climbing in through a whole in his wall. Oh, the high comedic value of anxiety disorders. It can't be helped.

I laughed out loud while reading this book multiple times. I almost wish they would make a movie out of it, but only if they could promise not to lose the irony oozing from the narrator's voice.

Blood, Bones and Butter
By Gabrielle Hamilton
(Audio Book)

Oh, foodie memoir. You are moderately charming, but you're mostly getting kind of old.

Anyway, here's the deal, go read the first chapter of this book right now. The first chapter is so charming and well written, so surprising and interesting, that it makes up for the fact that the rest of the book is kind of... whatever. The first chapter of this book could have been a short story in the New Yorker or The Best Non-Required Reading. I listened to it twice.

Alright, enough gushing. The funny thing about the rest of this book is that a lot of times when I hear or read things that food people write, I agree with them totally and completely, and I'm a little horrified by how pretentious they sound. Because that means I sound pretentious too. This book is like that.  Hamilton has had a really interesting life and I completely agree with everything she says about everything (YAY FEMINISM!), but after the first chapter this book still made me feel a little UGH. Is it because it seems sort of hip in the bad sense of the word? And almost impossible that so many of us (who is "us"? Middle class white people?) could suddenly have these feelings about food at the same time? I don't know.

Just go read the first chapter.

Win!

I verified my novel last night--more than 24 hours ahead of the midnight, November 30 deadline--at 50,608 words.

I almost don't want to talk about this experience because I don't want to jinx it.

Think of the one productive thing that you've always wished you could do but have always been too busy, lazy, or intimidated to do it. Now let's say that someone applies just the right amount of pressure, while removing all of the mental obstacles. There's no reason to say no.

Right now, the novel I wrote is not a masterpiece, by any means.  Two of the main tenets of NaNoWriMo are "No Plot, No Problem," and "Write First, Ask Questions Later" meaning, basically, that it's an exercise in getting lots of words down on paper, not in being your harshest critic. Over-thinking every word is one of the number one things that holds new authors back. You can't afford to get mired in a cesspool of self-criticism when you've got to write 1,667 words every day, which is the second great thing about the whole experience.

Having a visible daily goal, with a monster end-goal in sight (and a group of hundreds of thousands of other people trying for the same goal) makes an enormous difference. Even with all these incentives, it's incredibly difficult to set aside such a huge hunk of time that could be spent doing just about anything else, but it's really rewarding to look at your word count for the day and see that you've written not just one thousand, but three thousand words.

So... what to do with my novel? It needs so much work before it could ever be anything like something someone would want to read. (And I haven't even written the end yet.) But, cheesy as it may sound, I feel like now I'm better equipped to get it there.  And there are more ideas stewing in my head for something else. I'm so glad I did this. Period.

Orange Ginger Cranberry Sauce

Is it a little excessive to make an entire Thanksgiving dinner for just two people? Probably.

Well, actually, yes.  Because there's no way on earth we can eat an entire ten pound turkey. But no one can stop us from trying because this is America.

Anyway. I am ECSTATIC to be back around my sharp knives and cutting board and shiny red mixer and millions of beautiful hand-me-down pots and pans and I have already started the madness.  Yesterday I made fudge.  Today I made the brine for the turkey (I used the recipe from PW). A pumpkin pie is currently in the oven. And I invented my own cranberry sauce recipe because I couldn't find exactly what I wanted online. All cranberry sauces are basically really simple, but this one turned out pretty damn good if I do say so myself.

Orange Ginger Cranberry Sauce

1 bag fresh cranberries
Zest and juice of 2 large oranges (separate)
3 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Wash cranberries and inspect for stems and squishy berries. Discard anything icky.

In a large sauce pan, briefly heat olive oil over medium heat. Add ginger and orange zest and cook until they begin to sizzle.  You don't want them to heat too dramatically or start to change color at all, just to get nice and hot.

When ginger and zest are hot, add the juice of two oranges and stir in the sugar, brown sugar and honey. Allow to dissolve slightly.

Add cranberries and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.  When the mixture boils reduce heat to medium and continue to stir it until the cranberries start to pop and become soft.

Add cinnamon and cloves. Simmer for five minutes or until the sauce thickens, stirring occasionally. Give it a taste and make sure it's not too tart; add sugar or spices as necessary.

Allow to cool completely. I dare you not to eat this on a turkey sandwich. I dare you.

Mexican Mail Fraud

We fly back to the States tomorrow. I can't believe that our time here has gone so fast (and that Tim's fellowship is over--he's like, a normal person now! Pfft.)

This is the view today. It's NOVEMBER.

Reasons I do not want to leave Uruguay yet:

1. It is summer in Uruguay
2. I totally dig all of our friends here
3. Waking up to this amazing view from my living room, every single day
4. The steak: seriously, there is no beef like this beef.  This beef sings songs in your mouth. This beef woos your brain. And there is no "well done" here.  There is only "jugoso" and "a punto": i.e. "rare" and "less rare." Ohhhhhhh... I can't leave!!
5. Anyway... Cheap movie tickets
6. My electric kettle: it changed my life.
7. Lack of awful bullshit rhetoric-machine on the television 24/7
8. There are bookstores on every corner. Even if they're not in English, I don't care.

Reasons I'm looking forward to going back to DC:

1. Access to my full wardrobe
2. Mexican Food (are you ready, Jana?)
3. Access to Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu streaming (which you can't get outside the US without a VPN)
4. Access to my cellphone: I've heard my parents' voices like, twice in the past three months. Also, I need to uh, plan my wedding.
5. Wedding dress shopping
6. We might be getting a cat! A cat!!

Ok for real, I'm not looking forward to going back to DC at all. I can basically live without most of the stuff in the States that I don't have here, except the Mexican food and the people I miss. And my sharp kitchen knives. I really miss my sharp kitchen knives.  And I basically never want to hear another word about American politics ever again.  Just vote, people.

Most of all, winter in DC sucks. SUCKS, I tell you. I was super-miserable the first month here in Uruguay but now that I've adjusted I soooo don't want to leave yet.  Just give me another month or two, ok? And maybe mail me some tacos and enchiladas.

Time Travel for Amateurs

I'm reeeeeally supposed to be getting caught up on my novel after spending three days sitting on the beach and eating steaks, but I had to share this because it's too incredible.  Look at these two pictures and then take a look at this article that Tim sent me today from Montevideo's newspaper, El Pais.  

In case you don't speak Spanish (welcome to the sad, pathetic club) the general gist is that 40 years ago today, about 100 yards from my house, there was a terrible helicopter accident that killed 8 people and injured 40 others while a crowd of thousands watched.  This morning in Pocitos (we are right on the edge of the neighborhoods of Pocitos and Buceo) there was a memorial for the victims of the event--both those who died and those who were traumatized by it.

This from the illustrious Google Translate: "That day, as part of the 154 anniversary of the Navy, test on the capabilities of helicopters in rescue work was scheduled. The event generated great expectations. About 20,000 people attended."

First, I just think this old photograph is amazing. That's where I live. From where I'm sitting right now, I can see where the photographer who took this picture was standing!

Photo credit: El Pais

Second, I'm totally one of those people who walks around freaked out by the idea that there are skeletons inside of all of our bodies.  So along the same note, I'm totally, insanely fascinated thinking about what took place on the ground we walk all over every day.  In Uruguay it's an especially fascinating exercise.  For better or worse, even the mall sits on the site of the prison where thousands of political prisoners were held and tortured during Uruguay's military dictatorship. You have to walk through the prison gates in order to get in. And, "The former prison administration building now houses a McDonald’s and a Don Pepperone restaurant with patio seating." There is an admitted element of the grotesque to all of this, but it is impossibe not to find it interesting, and important--I think--not to forget.

I was admittedly a little bored by Uruguay when we first got here and it's my own fault for being that way.  This is not a place that flashes its history around on its sleeve and makes a tourist attraction out of everything. However, once you begin to learn the history of the place, you understand why and you can't help but appreciate how much people here value their day to day lives. It's kind of nice that Uruguay doesn't pretend to be reducible to just one souvenir image: the Eiffel tower, the White House, the Hollywood sign.

Uruguay is a small country. It's incredible to think how an event like the one in the photo above would have affected people and what they might have thought, especially taking place as it did during a time when Uruguayans were "disappearing"because of their political beliefs.

This is why I love to travel. I love to see the beautiful and absurd and sometimes horribly sad things that happen in the world and how other people deal with them. Seeing a picture like this makes me wonder how many people who were there that day--standing on the beach I look at every day--I've passed in the street, and if they look at my building and think about how it wasn't here once. It's like traveling in time as well as space.

Idle Hands

Humble beginnings, on the floor of the sunroom in the first apartment.

When I first arrived in Uruguay it was still late winter here (in August! Inconceivable!).  It was cold and gray and dreary and I realized about three days in that it was stupid of me not to have brought some sort of knitting project.  The whole point of knitting, as far as I'm concerned, is to keep you warm while you space out and watch TV.  And I'm totally incapable of watching TV without doing something else at the same time.

Within about two weeks I couldn't stand it anymore and I started to look for Uruguayan yarn stores. It turns out there was one only a couple of blocks from our first apartment.

My grand ambition was to obtain some some of Uruguay's incredible locally-produced yarn and make some sort of gorgeous, luxurious... thing.  But what they prefer to do in the yarn stores here is produce the gorgeous things themselves, and sell them--already knitted.  Then they sell expensive bamboo yarn and cheap acrylic yarn on the side. Please note the bright, insane, synthetic colors of this blanket.

"Cathedral" edging

For a while now I've wanted a granny square blanket, because they're so deliciously silly and fun. This turned out to be the perfect project on one hand because crocheting a granny square allowed me to keep my brain busy with lots of different colors, and only required me to buy one needle instead of two (This is the worst. logic. ever. As knitting needles come in pairs).  It was not so perfect because crocheting a granny square blanket means that you essentially make a hundred million little coasters, which you then combine together at the end.  I started this project because I was cold and wanted a blanket.  The only way to be warmed by it during the long process would be to put them all in a big pile and then burrow under them.

Anyway, the pattern I used was this Summer Garden Granny Square, which is not a normal, plain jane granny. It was also sort of interesting because, did I mention, I haven't crocheted a damn thing since I was 8 years old? Even then I'm not sure what I did could be properly called "crochet."

However, through the patient tutelage of the internet (hurrah internet!!) and a decent amount of frogging and re-crocheting, the thing is finally done!

It is now spring in Uruguay and essentially too warm for a blanket, but it's sort of pretty.  I'm trying to decide what to do with it now.  It's not really the granny square blanket I always dreamed of... any takers? Should I donate it? Is anyone pregnant?

Donezo.