Christmas Eve dinner > Christmas dinner

Appetizers:
Baked brie with sundried tomatoes and herbs
Pepper and herb rolled goat cheese
Crackers
Crudite.

Dinner:
Balsamic roasted asparagus
Tomato-bread gratin
Sirloin with pan sauce and persillade
Oven-baked onion rings
Pancetta-wrapped scallops
Grapefruit-glazed pan-seared scallops
Arugula in olive oil

Dessert:
Roasted chestnuts with salted honey
Cookies!


Booyah!

Also, fresh roasted chestnuts look and feel what I assume is similar to rat brains. Whole rat brains.  So it was like honey-dipped rat brains. Delicious rat brains, though.
I have officially eaten to capacity. I will probably have to spend three weeks, at least, making up for it. Worth it? We shall see, we shall see. That last slice of pound cake wasn't entirely worth it. But hey, once a year, right?

Cleaning and Packing

Chuck left today. I got home from Bandidos just in time to say goodbye and stand in the doorway, leaning against the frame with one knee bent, foot on opposite knee, arms folded, watching my little Chuck go off into the real world, to start work as a Lieutenant in Oklahoma, not knowing the next time I would see him, only vaguely aware that this isn't goodbye, really, just a very very very prolonged See ya, chick!
That's what Chuck called me. Chick.
Or Edna.
You never have enough time when friends visit. But we had fun. I got Chuck and Kyle free quesadillas and tacos from Bandidos. Me and Chuck sat around the house reading fantasy novels and playing Call of Duty: Black OPS (respectively) every night he was here, like he'd never left to go to Virgina for four months, like no time had passed between now and last August. He even brought balmy almost-August weather with him. He's the only other person I know that is completely okay with my preference to stay in, he doesn't question it. In fact, he stays in too, I give him an excuse to leave the bar early or never go at all, and then it would be me and Chuck, sitting in silence reading and playing and listening to rap music.
We went to St. Mikes and drank and played darts. We hung out at Lauren and Ryan's house where we watched the eclipse before I made Kyle and Chuck leave early with me because I had to work the next morning, and did not want to go on a block walk in 20 degree weather, eclipse or no eclipse. He went with me when I applied at Waterworks for the cocktail waitress position advertised on Craigslist because I have huge anxiety about going in and applying at places. He ordered a beer as I filled the application out, and talked to the only other person in the bar besides us and the bartender. Chuck is the most congenial and welcoming person I've ever met. He can strike up a conversation and befriend anyone, it's magical, I've seen it happen. It doesn't even occur to him, it doesn't register on his radar, to be awkward or self conscious or to think twice or doubt or over-analyze.
Then we stopped at the Cupcakery where he caved to the "Buy One, Get One" cupcake special of the day (two chocolates, please) and bought a necklace for his mother for Christmas.
Now he's driving to Illinois to see his family for Christmas, then to Oklahoma and his base, to get settled and start working his 80+ hour work week. At some point in the future he will be shipped to Iraq. I am dreading that day.
I am taking a break from cleaning the house and my preparations for my 6-hour drive tomorrow. Minna and I are carpooling to save money and gas, and for the support, obviously, and the ample time we have to divulge our deepest and darkest secrets and insecurities to each other, like we always do. Then it's sunny South Florida for Christmas and gluttony, which I approach with caution and disdain. Though the food my mom and I are going to cook sounds absolutely decadent and delicious, I have only been approaching it from a theoretical point of view. I haven't actually considered the fact that I have to eat everything we are cooking, that it is expected of me. I will have to factor in exercise to compensate for all that I am going to eat over the next few days. I've been feeling especially fleshy and doughy lately. I know I have gained weight, and I am not happy about it.
I made an appointment with my therapist this morning, then called and canceled because I was too nervous to go. Adulthood is nerve-wracking.
I finished The Magicians today. What an amazing book! I've been meaning to read it for months now. I regret not reading it earlier. I regret reading it too quickly. I am impatient for the sequel to be published, in April 2011. I bought a copy for Chuck, and will buy one for Minna for Christmas. I will post a review about it soon enough, probably after Christmas.
I am starting on Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs tonight. This literary gluttony I've been indulging in since school ended is amazing. I haven't read this much in ages. I feel like a kid again!

Late Night Recollections and Reflections of the College Sort.

Late night. Not drunk, just tired. My good friend Chuck is in town for a few days from his Army Officer's training in Virginia. He graduated! Next step: Lieutenant school. How awesome is that? I am always in awe of the friends that I have, and feel truly blessed, and definitely perplexed as to why, they are my friends.
Kyle won the Beer Olympics tonight at St. Mikes Pub. Chuck came in a close second. Those two. Peas and carrots.
Kyle made his winning shot in beer pong after staring his opponents in the eyes, licking the ball, and saying: You're gonna drink my spit!
Then he made it into that damned red cup, and the place exploded. Only Kyle.
Chuck chugged a liter of beer and beat guys twice his size. I guess the army does that to you.
I scratched on the eight-ball in pool and lost to Joey after playing my best game in a long time.
I also learned how to play darts correctly. Once I master foosball and air hockey, I'll have all the bar games mastered, and a harder time dispelling the rumor that I'm a lesbian. I guess straight girls don't play pool, or darts, or foosball, or air hockey? Which I find bizarre. I was, and still am, under the impression that boys like girls that can keep up with them. Yet, when they encounter these girls, they are intimidated, emasculated, suspicious of lesbian tendencies. Weirdos.
Also, mastering bar games while a 5th year senior in a state school known for partying: commendable or shameful? Who can tell. I flipflop between the deep dark depths of despair at my social and academic stagnancy, at this state of arrested development I find myself, and the relief at knowing I'm simply taking the longer road, making it hard on myself and hoping for a better outcome. Mostly, I switch between the absolute-worst-case scenario, and the not-so-bad-could-be-worse-case scenario.
I tried smoking a cigarette tonight and was made nauseous because of it. Rejoice! I think I am finally on the road to quitting. Not quitting, per se, but drastically cutting back. I'll admit to liking it too much to actually quit. But I also like -- nay, love -- running, and the more I run the less I want to smoke. Novel concept, I know. Ha.
I am in a sarcastic kind of mood tonight. Sarcastic and apathetic, and fairly objective. Nonchalant. Very 'shit happens then you die'.
Also, hi mom! I love you and think of you every day!
This is me, signing out for the night to curl up with The Magicians by Lev Grossman. Think Harry Potter meets Narnia meets, I don't know, The Catcher in the Rye. It's good.

running with swan thieves

im reading haruki murakami's what i talk about when i talk about running. i started running again. im not finished with it, so this isn't a review, its just a me saying that ive started running again, which will hopefully lead to me permanently quitting smoking. i read a quote from linda ronstadt in a health book saying something along the lines of running being the best cure for depression. im not saying im depressed, its silly to self-diagnose something as insubstantial and subjective as depression. im just saying, i can understand why she'd say that. i can understand why murakami would write an entire memoir about it. he was a 70 cigarette a day bar owner when he started running, and now he runs marathons. its the perfect example of "if he can do that then so can i."

i did, however, finish reading the swan thieves by elizabeth kostova, like i mentioned in the previous post. id read the historian when i was a freshman in college. its a tome, so i felt a wee bit awesome carrying it around with me while i read it. plus the cover is awesome.
i loved the historian. i loved that there was an anthropologist in it, since anthropology was my major at the time, and i hadnt encountered many anthropologists in pop culture beyond indiana jones, and hes definitely a joke in the anthro world.
i didnt remember much about kostova's writing style when i started swan thieves. i just knew id loved her previous work, so i naturally thought id love her newest one. the premise surrounds a tortured artist arrested and committed for trying to attack a work of impressionism at the met in new york. leda, by gilbert thomas. the man's psychiatrist, marlow, becomes obsessed with the man and his illness, and begins to show similarities to his patient as the book progresses and he becomes more involved with him.
i dont do it justice, really, whenit comes to summarizing the plot. the story line isnt bad at all, but it certainly isnt deep enough to fill 500+ pages. i found myself waiting for the action to begin, and still waiting, come page 300, 400... the jet-setting, conspiracy-theoried, treasure-hunting, genre-filled action of the historian wasnt present in the swan thieves at all. the pace was slow, and stayed that way throughout. it became a story of one man's women, essentially. they were smart women, though, and he was a charming and handsome and tortured artist. whats not to love aout that? except everything. ive had my fill of those kinds of men, and reading about one, especially coming from a woman, kind of angered me. im no feminist, feminists give feminism a bad name, but i really am tired of seeing this happen in literature. tortured artist not too tortured to get laid on the reg, break hearts and souls, leaving striken and single women in his wake. yet his torture stems not from his actions and playboy ways, but is completely self-contained and nurtured.
im not sure what im trying to say anymore about the novel. it was boring, but i finished it. it had its good parts, kostova's prose is beautiful and lyrical and picturesque and all that happy horse shit. she certainly knows how to write, to describe and set scenes and make me wish i were a repressed 19th century female impressionist painter in love with my husbands elderly uncle. oh yeah, thats part of the story, too.

I ran out of wishes last night. there were simply too many falling stars to keep up with. i prefer to say they are falling rather than shooting because shooting is too violent and meteor shower is ravaging, too scientific. i like the romance of falling stars. tripping over each other in their rush to circle the sky. like the caucus-race in Alice in Wonderland.
i lied though, about running out of wishes. i've never believed in wishing on falling stars. i've never believed in wishes, really, because i don't think any of the wishes i've wished have come true. not to the specificity with which i submit them. but i wish anyway. 
i found out about the meteor shower from facebook, naturally. the status update of a former romantic interest whose status updates stick out from the rest only because he's seen me naked. it was a cattle-call, i guess, a summons: who wanted to stay up all night and freeze to death to watch the meteor shower? he called it that. he's an environmental science major. i don't know where he went to see the stars fall, or who he went with, or how late he stayed up to watch them. i dont know why i care.
i drove to the florida/georgia border, with my cruise control at 45 and the lights on my dash turned down to almost nothing. then i turned around and drove to sunset landing and shuckers oyster bar on lake jackson. i went there once with garrett when we were still in love. its a nice little dump. i sat in my car and counted falling stars and imagined being murdered on the shores of a lake in northern florida by weird northern florida hillbillies or gangsters or a seemingly harmless old woman who is actually a sociopath. i sat there for a while counting, then stopped counting when i started seeing my breath in my car and went home.
the cigarette butt bucket on my stoop was frozen solid, butts and dirt, grime and empty packs of Camels all suspended in last week's milder weather.
ive been reading The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova. its boring compared to The Historian. ive waited 350 pages for it to catch up. it is still only luke warm. i suppose thats what i get for expecting a book about the French Impressionists to be exciting. Dracula, now THATS excitement. at least blood is involved. other than a character getting her period, there hasnt been a single drop. i could write a better review about this book, but i dont feel like it. its slow-going. but i will finish. then i will read Lev Grossman's The Magicians. or Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs. or Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch. or Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, probably this one because im itching to read Freedom. 

there is a meteor shower tonight in gemini. im going to brave the cold to see it.

semester over

when i am at home at night and i am in my bed reading or simply lying in it i fantasize about the things my friends are doing that i am not doing, the things they are not thinking of inviting me to, or forgetting to invite me to, the things i wont experience, active things that burn calories and create smiles and memories, and i get so upset, so frustrated and sad and paranoid that i am not included, do not have the wherewithal to be doing the undoubtedly cool things they are doing, or the wit and ingenuity to think of my own super cool things to do without them, so upset that i tire myself out and go to sleep.

right now i am reading and listening to my roommate play final fantasy 7 and thinking of what my current love interest is doing without me, why my phone is silent next to me, not blinking or vibrating. just sitting there blacker than darth vader, and more intimidating.

i think i will go on a run despite the cold and bluster outside.

Tyler-Subzero

Another graphic memoir. As a kid one never really considers the feeling of the substitute teacher. I mean, the word substitute practically means mediocrity, at least to an elementary school kid, though they may not yet know what mediocrity, or substitute for the matter, even means. Regardless, in college, when subs are non-existent, you dont think back to your grade school days to reconsider your treatment of the subs. I, for one, will totally admit to being an asshole to the substitutes in middle and high school. So bad that when we had a repeat teacher, they'd remember me as the smart-ass goth kid.  No good. Reading this made me rethink it. Maybe this should be something everyone reads. We've all had subs, or most of us have, anyway, and its my opinion that no matter who you are, there is going to be a part of you that thinks the sub is, well, sub-par to the teacher, and therefore perfect territory for walking all over and mocking. I really loved this, though the font was a little small for reading, and the illustrations, though very very good, weren't aesthetically appealing, at least to me.

Pyongyang

This wasn't the first time I'd read this comic. I don't recall the first time, honestly, but I remember loving it then. Rereading it now, older, it still has the same effect on me, only I feel it more. As I've said in other responses to graphic memoirs, I wish I could illustrate my stories instead of write them. I know some people dont like graphic novels and memoirs, they feel their imaginations are being force-fed; they'd rather imagine the scene themselves, not be told what itl ooked like. But in cases like Pyongyang, and The Dead of Winter, its more an illustrated guide to the mind of the author. Instead of having to use so many words to portray the unearthliness of North Korea and its culture, Delisle shows you the eerie subway, the empty restaurant, the stoic guides, the wide empty boulevards of the city. Since, as Americans, we couldn't possibly imagine Communist stuff. Seriously.

The Evil Eye

This piece wouldn't be as striking were it longer. Of course, I was thankful to see that it was so short, as compared to some of the longer (read: 20 pages) essays we've read. But with the topic of race, Coleman could have easily gone on for pages about the injustices of facing prejudice against her and her husband because they were a biracial couple. Instead of stating an argument and defending it, however, Coleman simply tells a series of little anecdotes illustrating those injustices, subsequently stating and defending her case simultaneously. She masters the whole "show, don't tell" mantra of writing perfectly. Not only do you feel anger for her toward her persecutors, you also get insight into the daily struggles she and her jewish husband must endure.

Cris Mazza-A Girl Among Trombonists

I wasn't a band kid. Not that I didn't find humor in her story. I grew up a tomboy, and still am, so I do a lot of things that are boy-things, and am used to being 'one of the boys' even though I am still technically romantic territory, and so are they. I was bored through the first half of the piece, and skimmed much of it. I get that marching bands march, and I get that sports always get the advantage over the arts when it coems to budget cuts. What I wanted to hear more about, and was happy when I finally did hear about it, was her own personal experiences with the marching band and being the only girl trombonist. However, I think her prose itself a little dry, a little too scientific for the topic she's tackling. I am happy, however, that it wasn't overly feminist. I really don't like ready anything really feminist. I think feminists gives feminism a bad name.

Luis Alberto Urrea-Across the Wire

This piece sent shivers through me, as it's supposed to. It made me feel guilty for sometimes hating the life I'm living or the person I've become. Urrea's memoir/journalistic piece about the dump-cities of Mexico was written so personally, he knew these people on a level more intimate than most. To the outside world they are filthy and poor, stupid, not worth the time to rescue. Urrea and his colleagues help with that they can, from gynecological exams for women like Pacha whose children died in childbirth, to Mrs. Serrano, who was severaly dehydrated and had dysentery while pregnant. His prose is expressive and tender, yet matter-of-fact and concise. Though he obviously feels for these people, he knows there are certain things that cannot be undone, certain rituals they do that will never be understood by outsiders, like the scene with the Serranos and the rat. I loved this piece. 

Debbie Drechsler-The Dead of Winter

I love the austerity of this piece. Drechsler's story would not be the same without the illustrations accompanying it. Its a quiet piece about a subject that no one wants to talk about and is more common than people realize or choose to acknowledge. I like how wrapped up in her own thoughts she is, especially in the scene returning from the abortion clinic with her sister. They sit in silence, but you know from the panel illustrating the weather and the empty roads that its a tense quiet. Ive attempted to illustrate my writing before, and was so incredibly bad at it that I was embarrassed to go back and reread it, even though I was alone, and no one else ever saw it. I blush just thinking about it. The amount of respect I have for Drechsler for not only completing illustrated pieces, but succeeding beyond my wildest dreams, is immense. I wish I could do what she does, and has been doing, since she was a little girl. Not that I mind appreciating it from afar.

Frank Conroy-A Yo-Yo Going Down, a Mad Squirrel Coming Up

Hilarious! Memoir pieces are my favorite because I like thinking about others' lives instead of my own, and imagining myself as Conroy was more fun, I think, than anything else I've read for this class, thus far. I love yo-yo-ing to begin with, so I wasn't upset at the length of this piece like I was with a few of the other ones we've read. I zipped through it, laughing out loud from the spanish accents and ridiculous competition curation of Ramos and Ricardo to talking about Boobs with his cousin at the beach to how relateable Conroy is as a kid, even to me, in my twenties. I love that he grew up in South Florida, that sneaking a peak at a naked girl is only equal to yo-yoing, not better than it, that he too is confused by the "sloppiness" of things, of life, how you cant explain it.

untitled

About one year ago, at the end of December 2009, I quit my state job to work at a burrito joint. I took a massive pay cut and lost my fairly high (for my age and experience) standing on the social ladder. This is just another story about how I chose happiness over money, how I don't regret it, and how, somehow, a burrito place kinda changed my life.

I worked at the State Archives of Florida for three years, cumulatively. I took about a year off to deal with school and depression and keep my head above water. When I decided to go back, I felt more than blessed that they took me back. It was a quiet job. I spent countless hours making countless copies for lawyers, law-makers, geneaologists, students. The State Archives of Florida are a repository for the Senate and House, a goldmine for geneaologists and Civil War enthusiasts, anthropologists, archaeologists, lawyers, History Fair students, homeless people wanting access to free computers. My boss Miriam was a member of the SCA, the Society for Creative Anachronism, which means she and her husband dressed in medieval/renaissance garb and learned to fence for the sake of recreating a simpler life. My other boss Boyd was a trekkie with a doctorate in Civil War history, focusing on Florida and its governors. Their boss was a silver-haired lesbian named Jody whose wife was named Judy. No one questioned me or my eccentricities. I didn't question theirs.

After years of making copies, watching that bright green light move back and forth until I caused irreparable damage to my retinas, dealing with Miriam's silent grudges if you countered or disagreed with her, with Boyd's underhanded and patronizing comments, after breaking up with my first love and losing my identity, I was worn. I didn't want the quiet of the Archives any more, I didn't want to deal with the geriatrics coming in, the Daughters of the Revolution telling me of their ancestors from the Czech Republic, the 8th generation Floridians that used to have great plantations in the panhandle where their great great grandfathers treated their slaves better than those weird folks that lived the next plantation over. I didn't want to wear office clothes anymore, deal with the bureaucracy of the State system, of benefits that I didn't qualify for because I was part time, of putting my septum piercing into my nose, of having a serious job, one that I could turn into a career, one I could stay at for 15 years like Miriam, and develop heel spurs and a ridiculous knowledge of the patient records of a closed down asylum from the 1950s whose records ended up in the Archives' possession rather than be burned or thrown out. I wasn't ready to be an adult. I didn't have a lot of friends because I didn't have a way to meet people outside of my classes, and I hated those kids anyway because Anthropology kids seem to think they're better than everyone else because Anthropology is the study of man not aspects of them. I was unhappy. So I quit. I gave the Archives negative one day's notice that I couldn't work their anymore, sorry, I have a scheduling conflict with my classes, school's more important, I hope this doesn't burn bridges, and of course I'll visit. I didn't have a scheduling conflict with my classes at all. And I haven't been back since.

So I started working at a burrito place. I started working with kids my age, that partied, and I met new friends. I'm more social now, and do things I never ever ever pictured myself doing. Along with that, though comes self-reflection and doubt. Who am I, really? Did I always like going to football games but never did because none of my friends liked to go and I didn't want to go alone, or am I suddenly going with the flow, going along with the crowd for the first time in my life? Is my personality fading into something generic, am I becoming one of the many faceless college students I see every day, that I serve tacos and burritos and spicy nachos to? What right do I have to call them faceless? Who have I become? Have I really let a burrito job completely upheave my life? I take pictures of myself, all emo-style, making faces that I think look good. I take advantage of boys' willingness to buy me drinks, then leave them at the bar like the bitch I think I'm becoming. Every night, after the parties are over and the bars are closed and I've chugged a glass of water to fight off the hangover I know is coming and I'm just barely sober enough to think straight, I replay what I can remember of the night, and regret it. I ask myself, Why why why WHY did I do that? Why did I say that? Why didn't I talk to him, why did I hug her, I hate that girl, why did I buy them drinks, I can't afford it, why did I wear that, why oh why did I drive home, and why did my friends let me?

Laurence Gonzales-Marion Prison

There's something about Gonzales' portrayal of this prison and all the goings-on concerning it that made me smirk the entire time. He comes across as absolutely non-partisan regarding the treatment of the inmates, and the politics surrounding whether or not the prison should continue in its policies. As positive as being neutral can be, it also leaves the piece pretty barren when it comes to raw emotion. Because Gonzales tries to stay neutral, the people he interviews for the piece fall short of their true feelings concerning the prison, from the guards to the prisoners themselves. They end up seeming like caricatures of themselves, or simply prison stereotypes.

ACCs

4 mind-altering substances, 4 quarters, 4 double whiskey-diets, 4 days later, I'm a little tired.

red herring

I'm looking up the weather in Charlotte right now because I'm going to the ACC championships to watch FSU vs VT.
Pretty cool, right?
The thing for me about sports is that everyone always assumed I didn't like them because I'm quiet and not outwardly sporty. I played softball for 9 years, assholes, and was raised on a steady diet of baseball, hockey, and football. I go to Florida fucking State. Of course I like sports.
But I hung out with the goths and artfags in high school, and they didn't like sports. We didn't talk about the Habs during the Stanley Cup playoffs, or discuss the Williams sisters when Serena beat Venus at the French Open, or even Michael Phelps during the Olympics. Sports didn't exist for them, but they did for me. And they still do now. I don't hide it anymore like I used to. I still have the goth friends, except now they're called hipsters, and we still discuss things deemed more important by the "intellectual" crowd: art, literature, music, blah blah blah Radiohead blah blah blah War in Iraq blah blah blah Slow Food Movement blah. But that gets boring and tired and worn out. Come college, and I made friends that love football, and know more about it than me, and they teach me and it's awesome. Now I find myself getting ready to go to the ACCs even though I really can't afford to, but when you're best friend calls you at 7:30 AM to tell you she's already bought the tickets and bitch be ready because this shit's gonna be craycray and feathers and glitter are a must and like no eating for the rest of the week because we've gotta look our best for gameday and Tyrod Taylor's goin down, you can't say no. Even though you're Goodwill copy of The Swan Thieves is begging to be read, so is the prequel to The Mists of Avalon, and Infinite Jest is still sitting with a page-corner creased at about page 24359825094385 because you just couldn't do it, it was too amazingly depressing and put you in a frame of mind you imagine not too far from that of Mr. Wallace himself the day he decided to hang from a rope in his bathroom.
I'm addicted to the camaraderie of sports, to the unifying magic it casts on masses of vastly different people, from the far reaches of the social, economical, pyschological landscapes. I like the feeling of having something in common with that many people because sometimes I feel I don't have anything in common with anyone ever on the planet, and thats the worst, most lonely feeling in the world, worse than hugging yourself to sleep at night because it's cold and you've got no one else. I like being taught about 3rd down conversions and what off-sides means and the highest RBI in history and miracle stories like the 1980 USA Olympic hockey team beating the Soviet Union. It sends shivers coursing through me and my follicles to stand on end. I like bumping chests with the stranger next to me, despite my boobs and their pit stains, because that was a touchdown pass Ponder just threw with like a minute left in the game and fuck UF so hard I hate blue and orange together.
I recently spent a summer in Little Rock, AR at The Oxford American. I was an editorial intern, and yeah that part was really awesome, I completely loved every grueling second of it, but what I loved more was all the literature I was exposed to and had the opportunity to read. Including sports lit, which is so damn inspirational sometimes it gave me goosebumps rivaling those I get when the gloves are off and the punches get super serious during a hockey game. It made me want to get into sports writing, or be a sidelines reporter for ESPN. I don't know enough about sports, but I can learn. And I'm going to. Because, goddammit, there's nothing wrong with liking sports, just like there's nothing wrong with liking going to Burning Man or Woodstock or Crunkfest or the poetry reading at that cafe or the physics lecture at 8 PM tonight or the amateur circus or fashion show or the American Kennel Club/Eukanuba National Championships (because I love dog shows too, so fucking sue me.)
So much of this essay sounds really contrived and pretentious, I know. Like, not only am I trying to prove I like sports, but also that I'm deep and smart and like, I read books omg! All I'm saying is I like sports and going to games even though I don't know much about them just as much as I like staying in with Marion Zimmer Bradley or Mario and Luigi.

Worst Thing I Could Possibly Write?

I am a liar.

Gerald Early/"I Only Like It Better When the Pain Comes"

Early's prose is very concise and scientific, almost too much so. It becomes incredibly hard to read after a while. It's simply boring. I wanted embellishment and magic. I guess it's preference, though. This is an essay with touches of literary journalism. Hunter S. Thompson does the same thing. But interesting. I like that Early can compare The Incredible Shrinking Man with masculinity and boxing, and I like that he brings up the fact that boxing has Anglo-Saxon origins, despite it being dominated by minorities in the United States.

Margaret Atwood/A Path Taken, with All the Certainty of Youth

She's right and wrong. I agree and I don't. I like it and hate it. I'm wishy-washy, duuuh.
I never thought that artists and writers and creators had a singular defining moment where they suddenly realize what they are going to do, but I know it happens, and has happened, and maybe it happened to me, but I don't remember. I'm tired of the writer-especially the female writer-as being generalized by her suffering, her tragedy; whats worse is I feel I fall into the suffering tragic, all ambiguity absolutely intentional. I'm tired of writers not being taken seriously, but I don't expect to get a serious job with my creative writing degree when I finally get it. Atwood brings out conflicting things with this essay, but I really love it because of that. I decided to get a writing degree because I've been writing since I was in 4th grade. But it was journal-writing. First-world pre-adolescent problems. Training bras, first periods, softball games, stupid older sisters, dying pets and their inadequate replacements. Then after my dreams of becoming an archaeologist were dashed by reality and budget-cuts, I found myself taking my imagination more seriously, writing more fluidly, re-reading the volumes I'd written: 1997-2008. I didn't take writers seriously, either. But not like "Idiots, losers, there's no money in that, thats stupid, self expression is stupid". More like "They aren't real. They can't be real. I could never write like Nabokov or Murakami or Gaitskill. They aren't even real people, they're like Gods or something." But I changed my major from Anthropology to Creative Writing anyway.
I'm not sure where I was going with that.
Anyway.
I like reading about writers becoming writers. Its the same as reading cookbooks.

making up for stuff

here it is, the end of the semester, and im behind in my schoolwork. i tell myself every semester i will keep up with things. everyone does that. its not new. then i fall behind. everyone does. not new.
except im in college and falling behind now means ill be behind for the rest of my life. its scary to think about.
there are a million different reasons or excuses for falling behind. mine this semester are pretty loaded, moreso than usual. im not ready to disclose the serious ones to the internet, but there's one that's kinda funny.

on halloween i broke my teeth on my toilet while dressed up as sexy darth vader after losing to kenny powers in a costume contest and only winning the $50 bar tab instead of the first place $75 bar tab. go me! i have pictures of my broken mouth, but not of me in the sexy vader costume. sorry fellas.

anyway, this is me making up for a semester wasted. i shouldnt say wasted. i didnt waste it. i just fell behind. itll cost me the As i would prefer to get in my classes, naturally. you dont reward procrastination and laziness with As.

this is me trying again, for what seems like the millionth time, to make myself grow up. im resisting my own attempts at maturation. it should be me being placed in a test tube for study, not carrie bradshaw.

there! i did it again! i could sit and bang this out, one go, type until i get hangnails and carpal tunnel. but instead i write like, two sentences, then switch tabs to tastespotting.com and look at pictures of food. or i go to ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com and read celeb gossip. or facebook. i simply lack the ability to sit down and do something in its entirety in one attempt. i know people that can sit and write a paper in one go. in 7 hours be done. fuck that. how can they? do i envy them? yes. should i envy them? hell no. i should spend the energy i waste envying them and licking my wounds on just getting it fucking over with. approach it like i do every shift i work at bandidos, working out, getting root canals.

so why cant i just do it, and get it over with? why cant i get through this semester and the next, and graduate? why do i keep stopping myself? who knows. anyway. here in the next few posts are the assignments i should have kept up with this semester and didnt.

persepolis

i first encountered persepolis in french class two years ago. my french teacher looked like johnny depp, which was awesome. he also spoke german. three languages and dreamy puppy dog eyes and a little mustache and oh man i was smitten already and then he put this movie on that he said was adapted from a comic and we should listen very carefully because the subtitles were turned off and then on came persepolis and i forgot about my dreamy french teacher. everything about the movie was perfect, really. and decidedly un-american. thats probably what i like most about it. its like nothing thats coming out of the states. i love being american, dont get me wrong, but our movies and books and comics are still dripping with the American Dream, from the capitalism and idealism to the heavily saturated colors and inks and fancy fonts and even Spiderman has met Obama. And oh yeah, Captain America is dead. But Persepolis? Especially in its book form its striking. Its bare and minimal and gets to the quick in the funniest possible way. Like none other, Satrapi preserves her childhood and its innocence while viewing it through the eyes of the experienced and worldly adult she has become.
as universal as people are, its hard coming up with something that happened to me that people can relate to. its not pretension, im not better, my experiences arent more unique. i just feel, i dont know, boring? when put on the spot to come up with something that everyone can relate to, i get self conscious. i think "god what if no one relates to this? theyll think im a freak. this is too weird. too obscure. theres no possible way this happened to someone else, too mortifying" or "is my whole life gross? nothing but pooping and fart jokes? why can't i think of anything that doesnt have to do with bodily functions or mind-altering substances?" Then its "god eden if its something relateable why are trying to think of the most unrelateable and weird thing thats happened to you? just write about forgoing your fingers and just licking the cake batter straight from the bowl and getting it all over your face and chin, and how it was actually last week, not when you were two years old, or watching disney movies as an adult and picking up on the innuendos and sexism and racism and crap like that, or constantly tongue-ing the spot on the inside of your cheek that you chomped down on while eating some leftover pizza or a hard-boiled egg." then i stress myself thinking too hard about it, and end up lurking the facebook profiles of the boys in high school i was too embarrassed to admit i had a huuuuuuge crush on because they were either too preppy or too jocky or too good-looking to notice me. then there are the ones you would hate-fuck. that is, you hated them in high school, and hate them still, but you'd fuck 'em. why not? you hated them because they were good-looking back then and are good-looking now. you hate them now because you're older and look back on how they treated you and how you didnt realize it then but the names they called you and the things they said to your face and especially the things they said behind your back left a mark that has molded your personality whether you wanted it to or were even remotely aware of it or not. how they're probably the same as they were in high school but youve changed, changed so drastically they would never recognize you, or would and be in total shock. and youre not a virgin anymore, fancy that. imagine, meeting with that asshole that called you fat all the time at the five year reunion, youve lost 20 lbs and cut your hair and have done so much to bury your stupid naive grungy past and he's, yep, he's looking the same as ever and you know you look good and you see him and he sees you and the electricity you feel is the hatred for him and the knowledge that it isnt hate at all really but curiosity and yes! after years and years, admitting you had a crush on him the whole time and that hate is hate for yourself for crushing on him in the first place because youre not in high school anymore at all. yeah. you'd fuck 'im. but you'd still hate him.

The Ashes of August

You always try to find something to relate to when reading  a memoir-style piece. Being from Florida reading about natural disasters, I immediately think of hurricanes. I think "oh yeah, okay, i might be able to relate to the hardship and stress and grief of this."
Not for this.
The constant guarantee of unpredictable fires every August is terrifying. At least with hurricanes you know several days in advance the impending doom. But from what Barnes describes, an easy and carefree family dinner can turn into an all night vigil praying for the safe return of your fire-fighting husband. Voluntary fire-fighting, too.
At first I was taken with Barnes description of the landscapes, the colors and textures of northern Idaho, a region, a state, I never really consider beyond potatoes and backwoods. I wouldn't've considered Idaho a part of the American West until I read this. I was moved. By the history that Barnes cited throughout, from her own experiences. I was especially taken the "legends" she mentions, like the horse out-running the fire by fifty miles, or the man that shot himself rather than facing the cowardice of running from the fire. They're bone-chilling. More bone-chilling, though, is the thought that Barnes and her family willing risk themselves every year, every fiery August, to live in that part of the world. She barely mentions the rumored brutal winters of the West (the movie Fargo comes to mind), but the summers, long and lush, culminating in a dry and anxious August, always on the verge of erupting.

kitchen

The majority of my time is spent in a kitchen. i found out my father had to have his cancerous prostate removed in the kitchen at home. i berated my roommate about his problem with girls in the kitchen at work. i eat my oatmeal steaming hot straight from the pot, over the stove, in PJs, in a bathrobe, in my underwear, naked probably once or twice. ive waxed my bikini line in the kitchen because thats where the microwave is, duh. whenever i enter an establishment with a kitchen, i head straight for it every time, a zombie to flesh.
but not human, thats not my thing.
i subject myself to daily torturous internal conflicts over whether or not i should do my homework or make this cauliflower curry, that pavlova, those financiers, a pot of collard greens, practically sitting inside the fridge, looking at everything at least three times, just because. my kitchen doubles as my laundry room, so i do my laundry a lot. i have a very clean wardrobe because of it. i read in the kitchen because most of the reading i do is from cookbooks when im not reading in the kitchen for school.
my room is okay. its decorated for fall right now, and smells like the publix cinnamon broom i bought and put above my vanity. but my room doesnt have food in it. my room is dark, my kitchen in light. i am not beholden to my room for bearing witness to the amazing culinary feats i am apparently capable of, the kind your friends think you're pretentious for and you think you dreamed except you have a gladwear full of pistachio maracons or a bowl of, in the words of the inimitable francis lam of salon.com, punch-a-hole-in-the-wall-good ratatouille. or some damn good aioli. the carpet in my room has fleas from house-sitting an evil cat.
my mom and i each drink two cups of milky coffee in the kitchen at 5 am before our exercise. this is also when we plan our day, from breakfast to dinner. our days are bracketed by the kitchen.
i also hate the kitchen.
i eat a lot more than i should because i am always in the kitchen. it has been witness to grotesque and unexplainable episodes of binge eating, fighting, crying, moping, and sometimes eerie silence, when ive lost the will to cook but not the habit of simply standing in my kitchen, looking around. it reminds me of broken ceramics and shattered crystalware, long and laborious holiday dinners and family meetings, of ex-boyfriends, oil-burns, spilled paint, mistakes, rejections. my mom remodeled the kitchen in the house i grew up in to help cope in a loveless marriage. i had sex with my first boyfriend on the counter of my first off-campus-house's kitchen, us buttoning our pants and wiping the counter down seconds before my roommate came home from work. we broke up weeks later and it has haunted me ever since. there have been roaches in the kitchens of all the college houses ive lived in. one time there were maggots. kitchens are cesspools of rot, decay, stagnation, literal and metaphorical.
kitchens are forces to be reckoned with. they are the hearth and heart of a home, a gathering place for all those under the roof. because kitchens are glorified fire-pits, humans gather in and around them, as we have been doing since we evolved enough to discover fire and cooking and pottery to do it in. we love and hate in them. for me, i am drawn to the kitchen in times of pain, happiness, boredom, excitement, celebration. its where i pour shots of cheap whiskey or open a bottle of sweetwater blue, the only beer i drink. when my friend catherine comes to visit, we drink copious amounts of wine while cooking together, fancy-ing ourselves real classy parisiennes, all grace and fluidity and thin despite eating and drinking, copiously of course. we plan our futures in the kitchen: we're going to move to paris and get big in fashion(me) and cosmetic surgery (her). or we'll marry rich and move to the riviera where we wont have to work, we'll just have to, OMG, cook! spend time in the kitchen! its even written into my future.
when cat was repainting her house, the kitchen was the first thing she wanted done because its the first room people see when they walk into her house and, she says, because people judge you based on your kitchen: its layout, color scheme, how well-stocked it is, whether or not your copper pots are just painted that way or are really actually mauviel made-in-france-so-obviously-its-superior copperware.
that ratatouille i mentioned earlier? i made it tonight. except, no offense francis, mine was better. i tweaked it for fall because i can, because i had the ingredients, because it seemed like a good idea at the time. i tweaked it because i was in my kitchen, looking at my assortment of fall squashes, feeling at home.

fall ratatouille-adapted from francis lam at salon.com. this is infinitely adaptable. add tomato paste to the blender for more tomatoey flavor. go traditional and use eggplant instead of the squash, i only used the squash because i fucking love butternut squash. go greek and add lemon and olives, turkish and add cumin, spanish and add anchovies, italian and add basil and serve with good parm. you see the point. use whats in season, what you like. its cliche, sure, but people say it for a reason. the point is to concentrate the flavors of the sauce into something so intense it'll burn your tastesbuds off, or you'll taste ratatouille for the rest of your life. you can saute the veggies instead of roasting. hell, you could probably deep fry them for all i care. serve with a starch, grain, protein, once again, whatever you want. i prefer it on its own, with a really flavorful oil, like walnut, and real course and huge grains of sea salt. i like the bursts of flavor and texture it provides every other bite. i simply cannot be bothered with iodized salt.

2 large vidalia onions, minced

6 small to medium zucchini, cut into halfmoons
1 large butternut squash, peeled and cubed
assorted mushrooms, as many as you have or want, all the same size, chopped if need be
2 large cans whole plum tomatoes, san marzano preferably, or fire roasted, or organic, but always whole, maybe stewed if you swing that way
roasted red peppers, as many as you like, some people hate them, some dont. im assuming you know how to home-roast and peel peppers, so im not getting into it.
loads of garlic
salt
pepper
herbs and spices of your choosing, this is autumnal, so i went with nutmeg and garam masala because i didn't have ground cinnamon, but you get the idea.

over almost imperceptible heat, saute the onions until deep and golden and reduced to half their size, 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
in another pan, saute the mushrooms in batches. set aside.
drain the tomatoes, reserving the liquid. put on a baking sheet and break apart with your hands a bit. roast in a 400 degree oven until caramelized  and browned. transfer to a food processor or blender.
roast the squashes in batches until all done, keeping them separate. set aside the zucchini with the mushrooms. place 1/3 of the butternut squash in the blender along with the peppers, roasted tomatoes, tomato liquid and a few cloves of roasted garlic (assuming you threw them, unpeeled, onto the sheet along with the butternut squash.) puree, adding stock or water or wine until it thins. add about half to the onions, bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer until reduced to a thick paste that pulls away from the pan. then add the rest of the sauce, and reduce again. seasoning as needed, to your liking.
when the sauce is done, combine it with your roasted veggies. serve warm in a big bowl drizzled with walnut oil and coarse sea salt and a fresh pair of panties. trust me, you'll need them.

Looney

My mom taught the family dog how to swim by throwing her into the local drainage lake. On walks through the still developing development subdivision suburb or whatever you want to call it (like an even more morbid and humid version of Edward Scissorhands), our German Shepherd/Bassett mix would pull taut the leash and keep herself in a state of constant almost-asphyxiation.
"Mommy, why does Looney do that?"
"She's being the alpha dog, sweetie."
"Oh..."
"She's trying to be the pack leader, so she wants to lead us, to be in front all the time."
"Oh..."
"We're her pack, we-no, Looney, no!"
"WEEEEE!!!!"
Then she'd be rocketing down the street toward maybe a duck or squirrel, or simply because she felt the need to run. Me, small and brown, with a little toddler pot belly and a haircut that looked like a Lego figurine helmet, running to keep up with my running mother, undoubtedly a vision of youthful maternal perfection, long and blonde, outwardly happy with three little girls all under the age of 5 when she herself was barely an adult, running in vain after the world's only hound mix named Looney. Looney after the Canadian coin dollar. Not the cartoons. Just like I'm Eden. After a soup opera character. Not the Garden.
Looney would run right to the drainage lake behind the brush and undergrowth that I'd wander freely through while my sisters were at school, without worrying about spiders or snakes or neighboring sexual offenders. Simpler times, simpler pleasures. Looney would do a lap or two around the lake, probably a mile total, before we'd stop her. Then my mother would climb onto the top of a large cement pipe, scoop Looney up (Looney was an angsty undersized pre-teen, 15 pounds tops, probably why she'd run like hell away from us all the time), swing her back and forth for momentum, then toss her right into the lake, alligators, water moccasins, parasites, all probably present and accounted for. We'd laugh as Looney paddled back, huffing and puffing and spurting drool and lake water. She always came back. Always wanted more. And always, my mother abided. Again and again Looney would be airborne for a fleeting moment, legs and paws straight out and rigid, her tail curved like a question mark, unmoving as she sailed. I think that's why Looney wanted it so bad, to be thrown into the lake. To fly. She was that kind of dog. Transcendent.
It was all in good fun. We didn't abuse Looney. My mom and I treated Looney like a queen, up until I became too wrapped up in my own self-inflicted teenage hell to care. Then my mom took on the role of primary Looney-worshipper.
Looney was there when we moved for the first time from our standard American-Dream-issued-yet-really-a-sign-of-failed-affluence subdivision home in Victoria Woods, in Green Acres, to a 1960s farm-style house on two acres of South Florida acreage, all Australian pines and the normal Florida grass thats weeds in places north where golf grass is normal grass. She chased ducks so often at the lakes and ponds in our little town that the sisters went in pairs, maybe even once or twice the three of us went, to walk Looney, to help in holding the leash as Looney surged forth with Cerberean strength, eyes on the ducks crossing the street, waddling through the ever-present South Florida puddles, picking at invisible morsels.
Looney always got away. We always chased after, screaming her name, flailing our arms in desperation as we watched her swim in circles after a singular duck that we'd imagine was laughing at her, baiting her, leading her on until she exhausted herself and drowned. Which she didn't. Looney never drowned chasing the ducks. It was my worst fear, but it never happened. She was too good at chasing them. She knew what her limit was, she simply ignored it.
Once, she brought home duck wings. I didn't question her.
I credit Looney for bringing my father, my mother, and myself together one last time before their divorce and the liquidation of the house Looney and my sisters and I grew up in. Looney died on a normal morning, very early, right outside my parents window, under the corn plants my mother prized, and next to the entrance to the crawl space that always held a sense of mystery for me, even as I got older and spent less and less time smelling the wet and mossy air coming from it. My sisters were both gone, living lives I couldn't imagine until I was going through it myself. My mother roused me gently instead of ripping the covers off and turning on every light in my room.
"Eden, Eden. It's Looney." I was groggy, so this is where things get iffy. I followed her out of the house to where Looney was. She was laying just in front of her usual dirt bed. I can't remember if she was already dead by the time I got there, or was going. My father was there, petting her. My father had always harrassed Looney, called her a stupid mutt all the time, but I knew he'd always loved her. I remember touching her fur in the gray early morning quiet, all color leached from the bushes and trees, my mothers eyes. We squatted around Looney for a long time. I just stared. Words were exchanged, but I don't remember what they were. It doesn't matter now. I didn't cry. I'm crying now, but I didn't cry then. I didn't cry until three days later in English class, doodling. I had to excuse myself.
Looney was the best dog in the world for a family like mine. She brought a family of individuals together as one by chasing ducks and causing neighborhood drama. She scraped all the paint off the front door by jumping up to look at as through the window every time anyone came home. Seriously, anyone ever. They didn't have to be family. Looney spent a good deal of her time near that door, ready to see who was coming. She'd chase our cars down our long gravel driveway until finally my dad hit her, and she and her paw were never the same. She barked uncontrollably at fireworks and tried to eat them. She buried my uncle's shoe which we unearthed 7 years later after a hurricane wrent all of our trees limb from limb. She attacked our cats on command, with little more provocation beyond "Git er, Looney, git er!" Then the closest cat got a facefull of Looney-mouth, all in good fun of course.
That dog. Oh, that dog.

Inherit the Earth

Again, Martinez' prose is exquisite and light in words, but heavy in thought and meaning. She says, simply, "those who perish as they make their brutal pilgrimage", leaving it to the reader to decipher the horror these people go through. She doesn't abandon the reader to his own musings, though. She mentions brutality, yes, but also illustrates, or, makes suggestions, to the reader, guiding his thought in the right direction... "Fourteen men who died in triple-digit heat... abandoned..." Like the other piece we read, she takes you only so far, but makes sure you get the picture. It's a little round-about, a little naive in her hesitancy to say what it is she's thinking, what it is that really happened. It can be annoying, also. Then again, her pieces are not about the physical suffering of a people, but the hope and drive behind their risking their lives, and the forces that drive them to do it in the first place, and the Spartan resoluteness to acheive a better life.

The Things They Carried

I first thought this was an excerpt from Tim O'Brien's book of the same title, and was quite confused. I'm not sure if the person that chose this story knew that it wasn't in fact from Tim O'Brien's book. I almost chose this piece because that's what I originally thought. I didn't really consider that O'Brien's work is fiction.

The piece by Demetria Martinez is quite different from O'Brien's. Where you think you can feel sympathy for the soldiers trudging through Vietnamese jungles in the heat of summer in O'Brien's piece, you are horrified and stunned to silence with the knowledge that, though O'Brien's is based on real events, the things in Martinez' piece are documented. They really really happened. As in, that note that says "I need you... I hope that very soon we can be together forever" was really written, really lost in the desert by someone risking their lives on the chance that they might be more free, might get the chance to spend the rest of their lives with their lover. Martinez doesn't have to say that in her piece. All she does is mention the note, the baby boots, the toothpaste. Her prose, though straightforward and brief, is very delicate, operates on inference and suggestion. It's almost coy. She lets the reader come to conclusions about what these people went through, yet she makes sure that whatever conclusion it is, it isn't a pretty one. She guides you only so far, but makes sure you get to an assumption appropriate for the subject, without risking a "choose your own ending" kitsch that a lot of elusive prose can do.

Essay-Johnson is exploring the environment that helped create the Eric Rudolph, the Olympic Bomber.
Literary Journalism-He recreates his encounters with his interviewees in great detail, along with the setting and scenery, and the activities these people engage in.

His writing is very descriptive and informative, a cross between literary journalism and a short story. In scenes describing the daily life and locations of the people Johnson encountered read like fiction, yet interspersed throughout are short, yet incredibly important and factual paragraphs delineating histories, biographical information, geographical information, statistics, etc.

It is obvious that Johnson went to fairly intense and thorough investigative lengths for this piece in his attempt to investigate and better understand Eric Rudolph, and also to shed light. However, some parts are surely fabricated. Though this is based on true events, he had to improvise. Do you think this piece blurs the lines of fiction and nonfiction, or did Johnson do a good job of writing as real a profile/memoir of Eric Rudolph as possible?

Johnson opens and closes his piece with scientific writing concerning humankind's relationships to caves since prehistoric times. Do you think these pieces take away from the overall story being told, or does this technique tie it all together/does it make the piece more cohesive?

Johnson's portrayal of the people he encountered for this piece is a little skewed; more specifically, they come off as insane right-wing pro-life radicals who, if not in open support of Rudolph's bombings, are not in disagreement with his actions aimed against abortion clinics. Is this piece really a masked critique of the community Johnson spent time in? Do you think his portrayal of these people is fair? Or does he do a good job of writing as objectively as possible?

On my birthday in 1882...

Jesse James was killed by Robert Ford.
Brad Pitt played Jesse James in the movie The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
I am connected to Brad Pitt.
Rejoice!

A Sea Worry

I appreciate the brevity of Maxine Hong Kingston's piece. So much must be conveyed in such a small space, each word must be carefully chosen and positioned, like building a tiny ship in an even tinier glass bottle. Kingston's piece is unpretentious. She describes her son's love and her fear of surfing, the dangers involved, the passion the boys feel for it. It flows nicely, does not snag your eyes on too-long sentences or sudden and misplaced semi-colons. Matter of factly, she has a technique anyone trying to get into nonfiction writing should heed and pay attention to, at the very least, yet not necessarily emulate or imitate.

Total Eclipse

This piece pissed me off at first. It seemed so contrived, too lyrical, almost mythic. I kept thinking its just an eclipse its just an eclipse its just an eclipse for chrissake! over and over, mental eye-rolls. I respect Annie Dillard very much, but this piece was written from a viewpoint higher than the eclipse she waxes rhapsodic upon. She switches from the reality of the eclipse to overstuffed and wordy philosophical discources and insights and musings about life, history, the eclipse itself and its meaning to humanity. As seriously as she took the eclipse, and how transformative it for her, inversely, this essay did nothing for me. No lasting effect, I did not think about it after I read it. It was just words on the page, it was there while I was reading it. Now Ive finished, and life goes on.

Gabrielle Bell

Gabrielle Bell is everyone in this piece. I know this post is late, I should have posted last night, but my computer is 5 years old and is finally starting to die, so I didn't post. Lame excuse, I know. But the reactions people gave this piece in class today proves that she's the everyman (or woman, duh). She takes the boring moments and makes them fascinating, approachable, totally not-boring and hilarious to witness. Illustrated memoirs have the difficult task of holding up a two way mirror (if that exists, this is just something thats in my head.) Not only are they illustrating their lives, they have to make it so that they're illustrating their entire demographics' lives, also. How do you make something so personal into something commonplace and universal? Realizing that hey, we're all the same after all and experience many of the same things, just in different variations, over different timeperiods, etc? Sure, yeah, you could say that, that'd be the easy thing to say. Or just make it super funny and silly, into something that people actually want to experience, and they'll find ways of applying it to their lives. Im not saying that's happening in this piece. Im just trying to look at different angles. Or maybe Im trying to be edgy and different and counterintuitive for the sake of counter-intuitiveness. Which is pretty lame, I know.

Karen Tei Yamashita

It's so strange to me that Americans lost touch with food, got fat, found food again, are now fat foodies fascinated by every little soybean or slice of pate that crosses their way. How did we lose touch with food in the first place? Yeah I'm including myself, because I remember the exact sandwich I ate which made me stop to consider the time and effort I put into it, the flavors that it was composed of, how I had accomplished so much by making my own sandwich, how great it felt to have made something that to me at the time was so goddamn gourmet for a 14 year old, and so healthy. It was tuna salad on a toasted pumpernickel bagel with tomatoes, onions, lettuce, probably some kind of pre-sliced cheese. And loads of spicy mustard. I had just discovered it. It was awesome. I ate it warm. I showed it to my mom whose luke-warm response was infuriating at the time: why didn't she understand the effort I'd put into the sandwich? Why didn't she paw at it, unable to reach the mighty tuna bagel in my upheld hands even though she's a good 5 or 6 inches taller than me, and my mother, to boot, who can do anything she wants in any universe because she's almighty. I remember sitting at the bar in my house, watching TV, thinking how easy it was to create something so delicious myself, that I didn't buy, in fact, it was like 203958032958 times better than anything bagel sandwich I'd ever had at the likes of Atlanta Bread or Panera Bread, or any other kind of pseudo-deli-bakery-cafe hybrid thing. What the fuck was I eating before that? How did I stomach it? Weird. That's another story entirely.
Yamashita's essay drove home the point that life revolves around food, literally (duh), metaphorically (no shit), spiritually (riiiiight). She writes from an interesting perspective. I am not that familiar with her family history or ancestry, but I gathered from the short bio that being a Japanese American living in Brazil, she was practically drawn and quartered (thirded, really) between the familiar, the bizarre and foreign, and the utterly boring and bland. Grappling with all these flavors and tastes and cultures surely was a strain, and overwhelming, but she saw the similarities between them, especially the Japanese and the Brazilian, and brought it forth as something really unique and interesting: two complimentary cultures, one of Japanese living in Brazil, one of Brazilians living in Japan, coming to the same conclusions to solve the old problem: whats for dinner?
They improvise, they settle, they sacrifice, they infuse, they baffle the natives. Ultimately, expats from any country make due with the lot they've chosen, were given, stumbled upon, whatever. Survival of the fittest, maybe? Flight versus fight? Adaptation and assimilation? Who knows. I really enjoyed the essay, the recipes, the stories behind them, the cultures.

Chapter 9: Interviewing

I don't like to interview people. I really hate it, actually. It isn't because I'm shy, I get over that really quickly. It's because I honestly, selflessly yet unapologetically do not care what most people have to say. Unless I am being taught something absolutely new to me, I would rather read something to find out about someone or something. Plus, I simply cannot be bothered to sit down and inquire into someones life. I hate stroking egos.

What Helen Keller Saw

I suppose this is a profile and defense of Helen Keller. It was incredibly embarrassing for me to realize that I never really considered Helen Keller until Ozick pointed out in the first part of her profile that no one really considers Helen Keller anymore. Lord, what are we coming to?
My mom bought me a library of stereotypically classic novels from a smattering of cultures and sources, with the intent to culture me and force me to educate myself, refusing to have an idiotic and un-self-reliable and codependent daughter. She bought me Twain and Anne Frank and Helen Keller in the first round of classics. I read the Twain and Anne Frank, but never even cracked the spine of Keller's. Like today, it wasn't even considered.
Ozick does what she sets out to do, which is turn the reader on to the story of Helen Keller, defend her and bring her remarkable story to the forefront again, where it should be. I didn't know Twain was such a supporter of her and Anne Sullivan. I didn't know Keller's name was trashed, that she was called fake at the age of 11. Ozick relates all of this in a matter of fact no bullshit you need to listen to this because it is important biographical way that catches you and keeps you. Im not a fan of biographical things; the writer always somehow writes themselves into a part of their subject's life, living vicariously through the subject, and sensationalizing themselves. Ozick does not do that. And I think that is awesome.

Candyfreak

Steve Almond's writing lies somewhere between memoir and journalism, as the introduction to the excerpt states. I'm repeating this because I admire how he hides his flaws with candy, acknowledges that it may come across as pretty pathetic, and has the balls to write about it anyway. He's chasing candy, a universal (and usually feminine) symbol of comfort and forced forgetting. He goes so far to want to see it in it's pre-natal, most vulnerable state. He seeks to bring down and humanize that which brings so many people comfort. Maybe because he has none, even in his own skin. Ultimately, though, I dont think he achieves that, or even comes close. Instead he finds himself in arguably the most depressing place in the United States: the Midwest. No offense to anyone from the Midwest, thats just how I've always imagined it, and how its portrayed in American culture, just like the South is populated with a bunch of blathering drooling bipeds resembling monkeys, but way dumber.
Almond finds America in the Midwest, though. He doesn't find consolation in exposing candy as anything other than what it is: sweet comforting deliciousness. 

Maya Lin

I groaned when I read the title of this piece, Art and Architecture. Art writing can be more brittle and lifeless than how-to manuals for vacuum cleaners, and my patience has worn thin with boring nonfiction. I find no excuse for any piece of nonfiction, of any genre, to be boring. Especially in the 21st century. Just because it is based on fact, or explaining the inner workings of a simple household device, or you discovered a new and easier way to boil pasta without leaving the comfort of your bed, does not give you leave to just state it and move on, be a wordy show-off, or an old wind-bag. Nonfiction is as close to reality as you can get without having to take responsibility for it. It should be fun and insightful, embarrassing and irresistible, charming and neighborly. Even better if its just like having a mirror held close enough to your face you can see the dirt pores around your nostrils and the crust built up around the corners of your mouth and in that little crease on your chin.
Lin's piece didn't do that for me, really. It didn't reveal anything about myself to myself that I didn't know was lurking in the shadows there, nor did it shed any true light on something politically stupefying. It is, however, so obviously written from the heart, and enthusiastically, I had no trouble at all relating to her. She and I are nothing alike. She is ethnically diverse, I am plain vanilla white Caucasian, she is probably a Mensa-caliber genius, I am most definitely not, she has overcome great diversity to get to where she is today, I have kind of coasted along with everyone else, kept the pace with traffic. But I wasn't bored when I read her piece. In fact, I reread it to make sure I got everything. It's written in what I can imagine how she talks and thinks, which is concise and clear, and very very smart. The pacing may be slow, yes, but she doesn't spend time wasted on needless words or sentences or anecdotes. My favorite thing about this piece is that every sentence is necessary for the entire picture, to achieve the effect that she's going for. There is a serenity and calm acceptance emanating from Lin; she is telling you, yes, but showing you, also, the non-surprise of her winning, the struggles the veterans gave her concerning the structure of the monument she designed. Underneath it all is the fact that she is Asian, she designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial while still a student at Yale, she is a she (yes, sadly, that is still an issue these days).

Something I don't remember clearly? Pretty much everything before yesterday...

I wish I could romanticize something here about contending points of view on something really crucial to my development as a thinking and reasoning person. I really can't though. I remember clearly when I first learned how to ride my bike. And I was alone, too, so I can't fight with anyone about it. I don't talk to my first boyfriend, so I can't compare our versions of first-time sex with each other, which I think would've been really funny, hysterical even. Too bad.
Anyway. My best friend is currently out of town, so I can't rehash my version of our first awkward "here's my number call me we can hang out and eat bbq chips and watch lord of the rings together" episode when we were 14 and wearing really stupidly oversized army jackets and not combing our hair.
So I'll default to what, I believe, is my first memory ever, albeit its hazy, but thats the point. Somewhere deep in my gut I know this to be true, that I, still a babe in diapers, sat under a shiny new car and watched my young father negotiate with the salesman over the price. It was hot, I think, blazing and sterile, like South Florida tends to be all year long, without a cloud in the sky, the sun bleaching everything an unattractive translucency. I cant even say colorless, that implies white. This is a gross viscous see-through that makes you think the humidity in the air isnt simply moisture, but all of the sweat from everything, indoors and out, in a 10-mile radius. Horses and dog saliva included. Anyway, I think I am in diapers. I think I am sitting under the bumper of probably a Honda, because my father bought and drove a brand new Honda Accord for the first few years of my life. I think I remember him gesticulating, too, probably in anger at what is probably an idiotic and obstinate and short, but I don't think overweight, car salesman. I want to say I began to crawl to him, happily at that, I'd be lying if I said I did. Thinking too much about it makes me create things that more than likely didn't happen. All this is only a split second, the maybe/maybe-not-memory of this moment a tiny blip amongst other things I don't really remember that well, like my 23rd birthday, my friends' 23rd birthdays, Thanksgiving four years ago when I got drunk on champagne and Chambord in front of my born-again uncle. It was funny, thats all I really remember about that.

Craig Thompson

I love comics. I started reading them as a child, and though they have fallen out of favor with me for more grown-up things like the clothes I wear or what color my hair is or how many different gauges of rings can I fit in my ears before they start sagging just to see you know because I'm curious about the elasticity of my ear-skin, I will always hold comics close to my heart as one of the truly exceptional and avant-garde literary genres. Totally underrated, too.
Craig Thompson does a fantastic job of dispelling any immaturity that critics may find or try to assign to comics or graphic novels. Each panel is a snapshot from his heart, from what he holds dear, the experiences that helped shape him into the man with the ability and audacity to not only write about his life, but to illustrate it, too. This so obviously goes infinitely beyond the good vs evil super hero mega powered balls to the wall kamehameha stereotypes people have for comics. Dont get me wrong, I still read and have massive amounts of respect for anything Marvel related, pre-Disney-buy-out-bullshit and before their heads got so inflated with Hollywood helium they're so far beyond even Uatu's knowledge, but Thompson's work doesn't fall into that category. No where close, really. This is visual literature. He is still a story that is so inundated with information he simply could not find the words to describe it all. Maybe the words he needed didn't exist yet, who knows. 

Dave Eggerz

I've read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I'll read it again, too. And again. And again. I love this book, I love how Eggers writes. I have a huge literary crush on the guy. I even have a crush on his little brother Toph. That may or may not be creepy. But you can try to tell me you've never developed a crush on a character, underage or not, in a sad and compromised situation or not, and I wouldn't believe you.
Eggers is at the forefront of conversational prose. He's talking to you. You're not reading him, and he isn't writing. You're sitting at a bar in San Francisco or Chicago or LA or Tulsa or even Altoona, FL, and he's telling you his story like its nothing new. Because it's not new. Not to him. Out of context of the passage we read, in the book Eggers goes on a little tirade about the absurdity of privacy and mysteriousness, how people have nothing to gain from trying to hide or mask their lives and intentions and what's the big deal about disclosing such a personal and heartrending and tragic story anyway doesn't everyone go through something as personally traumatic at least once in their lives and shouldn't we all just tell about it and be happy and free and open and get over it and move on and such? I certainly think its a good idea. This book is what made me seriously want to write memoirs. Not that I believe I could do or be what Eggers is, but I still want to write because of him.

Li-Young Leeeeeee

Li-Young Lee-The Winged Seed
Lee's language evokes so much, using so little: "...with luck we'd be able to make six visits. My father would have liked to do more in one day, but we couldn't plan on it, since the visits sometimes dragged..." His father's devotion to his parishioners is clear, vivid; he loved visiting, and wishing he could do more, all while entertaining and humoring those he does manage to see.
The scenery of Lee's childhood is unbelievable. So beautiful in its bleak morbidity, all blacks and blues and grays, one visions Lee and his father on a mission to save the elderly man from Satan himself, riding high astride a great black horse, leaving, instead of fire, icy landscapes and colors, mirroring Lee's prose.
"A silver Christmas tree from two years ago... seeds were scattered... Mouse and rabbit droppings... a black pot sprouted some frozen yellow grass... me balancing in both hands the blood and fresh corpse of The Resurrected Man, [the] one whose body we'd been swallowing all afternoon."
This imagery, befitting to Pennsylvania I knew he was referencing it before he actually said it,helps color the bleakness Lee uses to illustrate his past, his embarrassment at speaking, the rotten hole of a mouth his Chinese accent left him with while he was a child.
I was deeply moved by this passage, a feat not easily attained, considering my fairly steep standards, and the brevity of the piece. I want to read more by Lee, whom I have never heard of before now.

breakfast of gluttons

everyone quick! go by your favorite flaky grain cereal and add chocolate covered raisins and huge chunks of just ripe enough bananas to it and go craaaaaaaaaazy

if you are not a breakfast eater, i feel immeasurably sorry for you

Eat, Pray, Love response

I hate the label 'foodie'. Food is a source of contention; those who embrace it and 'foodie' culture are rosy-cheeked harbingers of joy, willing to glut themselves on delicacies and peasant fare alike, wholly different animals from the size 0 food-skeptics who walk like their joints need a serious oiling before they're bones pulverize themselves for lack of cushioning and fatty lubricant, who are in turn completely different from the mildly overweight, over-processed, white, bromulated, enriched, ultra-pasteurized, just add water (or milk for a richer flavor!) middle America.

Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love has been a staple of foodie lit since it was first published, before Julia Roberts and her giant mouth (appropriate for the foodie part, I guess) came onto the scene. I have avoided it since it's arrival on the bookselves, and, disregarding my abhorrence for Julia Roberts (seriously, the giant mouth REALLY bothers the hell out of me), haven't seen the movie because, ultimately, what's the big deal about food? Seriously. The entire non-Western world must be laughing at us, we boorish and fatuous loafs oohing and aahing at such old-world and commonplace cuisine as sardine-wrapped green olives, cherry tomatoes, and pecorino cheese. What should be normal for us, the freshness, the spontaneity, the personality, charm, quaintness and kitsch, we have to invent and assign to food. What I don't appreciate about Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love is that she treats the homegrown and deeply nurtured food culture of Italy as something to be gawked at and marveled, like her own very old man with enormous wings.

Given all that, this excerpt mentioned food only once. Incidentally, that sentence was my favorite out of the whole damn thing. I reread it three times, and reread "mushroom pate that tastes like a forest" about a million more times because that is exactly how I've always wanted to describe that deep, earthy, magical appeal that mushrooms have, but never did because, well, I never thought to compare mushrooms to their typical habitat. SILLY ME. The relationship Gilbert has with her sister is quaint, yes, and very affectionate and exceptional, I'm sure, but once I read that part about the food, the sausage and arugula and white wine, it went to the wayside, and I found myself caught up in exactly what I just spent an entire paragraph bitching about. But I haven't gone to Italy, I haven't gawked at the authenticity and realness of their food right in front of them as if it were some opera-caberet hybrid, getting all up in their faces and stupidly giddy about how truly Italian it all is. I don't do that to the people that make my favorite burgers, or whole-hog barbecue, American foods just as unique and exceptional and potentially life-changing as Italian italian food.

Gilbert's a fantastic writer though. She reads easily, and her prose is clean and consice without being dry. I guess that was the point I should have been trying to make in the first place...

Autobiographical comic panel responses.

i didnt entirely finish my six panels, though i did have a theme and a well-placed intention. my theme was going to be cute and cheeky, witty and amusing: 6 panels describing my most pronounced and annoying flaws as qualities that i would never change, that were in fact the best things about me, ranging from my Juggernaut-like self control to my irresolute determination to make the world's best ratatouille (this is not a food blog, dont worry).
yeah its pretty stupid now, in retrospect, now that im actually describing it outside of the confines of my self-saturated mental wonderland.
anyway, the catch is i have no self control and the eggplant always always always refuses to become chunks of creamy earthy silk everyone tells me about. every time i even think about making ratatouille, the eggplants i have simply wither and shrivel into long thin strips of what resembles an especially dark beef jerky, without the teriyaki coating. ive never met an eggplant that wasnt an asshole. a stupid stupid stupid vindictive sadistic globular and glossy asshole.
of course i am being unfair here. it simply cant always be the eggplant's fault. it could be mine, my oven's, my too-curious-for-his-own good roommate's, my cat's, the comcast guy's. it's probably mine. odds are its mine, and i am completely prepared to take responsibility for it. however, i will complain and whine and bitch and bray on and on and on about how unfair it is that the eggplant doesnt turn out right, that it makes me look bad, like i dont know what im doing (pffft) . then i might go onto jcrew.com or shopbop.com for a few hours, regardless of my time constraints.
i guess maybe i summed up the two panels i mentioned earlier, though its painfully brief. i suppose i should mention that my awesome awesome awesome self control lead me to spend more than just time on the aforementioned internet shopping meccas. you can add amazon to that list, too, for the deals you can find on trade paperback and new hardcover comics makes even the most modest and prude girl think twice. also, the ratatouille i spent three intimate hours with in the kitchen last night turned out amazing. i may have lost my eyelashes and a few fingernails along the way, but i consider those small losses in light of the seductive, titillating, climax-inducing, black-leather-wearing, and make-you-blush-thinking-about-it-in-the-library-the-next-day flavors and smells that are currently residing in my fridge, next to my roommate's vestal and Artemis-worthy easy mac.
i have to go now. that ratatouille's calling, and im never one to pass up a morning quickie. reading responses to come later in the day.

David Sedaris "Big Boy"

The thing about David Sedaris is that the events he writes about aren't as common as we think, yet the feelings he goes through are ones we can apply to a vast array of situations, so much so it sometimes feels like you could sue him for breaking into your childhood and stealing your most awkward moments and making them his. Not only his, but telling them in a way funnier fashion than you ever dreamed possible. I've never been foiled by an abandoned turd in the toilet of a friend's house at an Easter party. But damn if I don't know the helpless, dear God why me? feeling of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, being completely innocent and undeserving of the bad-nay, despicable-luck given me by some force greater than myself, the gods themselves.